A million workers take to Italian streets

["John O'Neill" <johnfergaloneill@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A million workers take to Italian streets
>From Paddy Agnew, in Rome



  ITALY: More than one million workers took to the streets of 120 Italian
cities yesterday. They were supporting an eight-hour general strike called
by the country's largest trade union, the left-wing Confederazione Generale
Italiana del Lavoro with 5.5 million members.

Boats, aircraft and trains, as well as some banks and post offices were
affected by the strikes which also closed down museums, bus, tram and subway
services in major cities such as Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples and Palermo.

The CGIL secretary general, Mr Guglielmo Epifani, told a key rally in Turin:
"This has been a splendid strike, with a huge turnout at demonstrations up
and down the country. The information we're getting from all over the
country suggests that more than one million workers have taken to the
streets of Italy today."

The strike was conceived this summer as a protest against the proposed
labour reforms of Mr Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government.

In particular, CGIL has refused to accept any change to the infamous Article
18, a hard-won concession from the troubled 1970s which guarantees job
security.

The CGIL claims, furthermore, the government's 2003 budget proposals could
lead to 280,000 job losses in health, education and the public services.

A further dramatic development, the announcement last week by Italy's
leading private sector company that it intends to lay off 8,100 workers from
its Fiat Auto section, meant the strike took place against the background of
daily regional protests at Fiat's plans. The proposed lay-offs caused the
main focus of the strike to be concentrated on Turin, a city whose economy
has revolved around Fiat for much of the last century.

Controversially, however, yesterday represented the first time in 40 years
that CGIL has called a general strike without the participation of Italy's
two other main unions, CISL and UIL, both traditionally to the right of
CGIL. The unions have been bitterly split since the June "Pact-for-Italy"
agreement with the Berlusconi government, when both CISL and UIL opted to
accept a form of labour reform (Article 18 included) that CGIL categorically
rejects.

"Nobody has even noticed the strike in Italy," said UIL leader, Mr Luigi
Angeletti, adding "this strike is useless and will have no effect on the
difficult economic choices facing the country."

The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Gianfranco Fini, also played down the strike's
impact, calling it "entirely politically-motivated"; while a spokesman for
Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party called it "useless and unreal" and urged
CGIL to abandon its new-found "political vocation".

However, the Democratic Left leader, Mr Piero Fassino, who attended the
Turin protest, called on the trade unions to unite and join the centre-left
opposition to the Berlusconi government: "The reasons for which this strike
was called by the CGIL are all related to issues which affect every citizen
and worker, reasons around which it is more than possible to map out a path
of trade-union unity."

Fiat in trouble: Business and Finance




© The Irish Times




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