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The Italian Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), following up on the report issued by an international RadioAstronomy Visiting Committee (RaVC) on how to foster the Italian Radioastronomy, started the procedure to create a new 2nd level structure within INAF: the Radioastronomical Observatory (ORA), resulting from the merger of the Astronomical Observatory of Cagliari (OAC) and the Institute for RadioAstronomy of Bologna (IRA).

The OAC staff always stated, at all times and at all institutional levels, that it will support any kind of effective coordination of the Italian radioastronomy, with the sole limitation that it must preserve the level of autonomy of the OAC in formulating proposals and administrative management. This is in line with how even much more complex facilities are handled, in a very effective cooperative and synergistic way by other 2nd level structures within INAF. A testament to the applicability of this approach, much less invasive than the proposed merger, is the call issued on March 27th, 2015, by the INAF Scientific Directorate to create the Italian SKA Science Coordination Board: if such a Board can be appointed, according to the INAF statute, and effectively coordinate the Italian participation to a project as gargantuan as SKA, no reason can be seen why this should not work just as properly for the VLBI participation, the other Radionet initiatives, and for the management and development of the three main Italian radioastronomical antennas. The OAC staff has consequently stated, and keeps stating, its unanimous and resolute opposition to the proposed merger hypothesis.

Despite this, the INAF top management declared that it is going to proceed with the merger process, regardless of the opposition of the whole staff at OAC. According to the "informal minutes" published on the INAF web site, the INAF Board of Administration actually decreed, in its meeting on March 25-26th 2015, to go on with the creation of the ORA.

We believe that going on with such an important change WITHOUT A SHARED PROJECT by both the INAF structures involved is humiliating, frustrating and discouraging for the staff and, consequently, highly detrimental for the whole INAF system.

The choice, which has no precedents in INAF, to create "thematic" structures by merging pre-existing structures geographically far from each other, implies a radical change of the architecture of INAF, thereby necessarily involving the whole Institute and not only the structures directly affected by it.

We therefore issue this plea to all the staff in INAF, and to the astronomical community at large, asking for their support in demanding that such sweeping changes in INAF be carried out in a spirit of a true collaboration among all involved parties, and never against the unanimous opposition of some of them.