Italy

"Toward the zero hour": Support the GKN workers!

Workers at the occupied GKN car parts factory at Campi Bisenzio in Italy, near Florence (Firenze), have made an international appeal to support their plan to launch a co-operative producing cargo bikes and solar panels. The struggle they have been waging since 2021 is now under threat, with workers facing the sack and eviction on 1 January 2024. Update: the campaign seems to be suggesting that they have successfully pushed back the deadline; but it is not clear. More soon. The workers' statement is below, above links to more information and to actions you can take. GKN and the asset-stripping...

Wave of protest after murder in Italy

On 11 November, 22-year-old biomedical engineering student Giulia Cecchetin disappeared after meeting her ex-boyfriend Filippo Turetta at the mall to buy her graduation outfit. CCTV footage revealed Turetta beating Giulia in the car park. On 18 November, Giulia was found brutally murdered, in the bottom of a ravine wrapped in black bags. The following day, after an international arrest warrant had been issued on suspicion of kidnap and murder, Turetta was arrested by German police officers after a passer-by had reported a car on the highway without its headlights on just outside Leipzig...

Italian government partly bans strike

The General Strike called for 17 November by the leaders of Italy’s two most powerful union confederations, CGIL and UIL, in protest against the budget of the government of Giorgia Meloni, was declared unlawful in transport beyond four hours. Never before in the history of the Italian republic has such a general strike had the law used against it in this way. Transport minister Matteo Salvini cited a 1990 law restricting strikes from “damaging the economy unduly in times of crisis”. But for the working class worse was to come. Their union leaders decided to comply and reduce the transport...

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

I once heard of a man in Newcastle who stipulated that when he died there should be no funeral service for him. Anyone who cared for his memory should instead watch The Tree of Wooden Clogs , a 1978 film written and directed by the Italian Ermanno Olmi. It was a good choice. Apart from other considerations, this is one of the great Italian films of the post-Neorealist period. Set in Lombardy in the late 19th century, the film depicts the working lives and utter hardship of four families (all played by local non-professionals) who work on the farm of a local landowner. A priest tells Bastiti...

Solidarity with Italy's workers and oppressed

Fratelli d'Italia leader Giorgia Meloni Italy’s 25 September general election was won by a “post-fascist” far-right party whose leader – almost certainly the next prime minister – still talks sympathetically about Mussolini’s regime. Italy is not about to become a fascist dictatorship; but this will be the most right-wing Italian government since Mussolini’s fall. It is a boost to the far right across the world and a brutal setback for Italy’s labour movement and oppressed people, who will need the greatest possible solidarity. Fratelli d’Italia (Fd’I, Brothers of Italy) is part of a so-called...

A spectre is haunting Europe

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of fascism. We caught a glimpse of that spectre in Sweden last weekend [11 September] and we are likely to see more of it next weekend [25 September] in Italy. It is not just that right-wing parties are winning elections. That would be bad enough. What we are seeing now happening in some parts of Western Europe is something new and terrifying. Political parties that have their roots in Nazi or fascist movements have emerged as mass organisations — and as parties of government. This is something that should keep democrats awake at night. In the Swedish...

Were Pisa workers right to block weapons for Ukraine?

The Italian union USB (Unione Sindacale di Base, Grassroots Workers’ Union) says that its members at Galileo Galilei airport in Pisa have refused to load weapons for Ukraine. The union has called for air traffic control workers to also participate in blocking the shipment of weapons, and for a demonstration at the airport. It says the workers were lied to about what was in the cargo, told it was humanitarian aid. What is positive is the workers’ militancy, their willingness to use industrial action as a political weapon and their exercising of distrustful oversight and controls over the...

200,000 in Rome against fascism

On 9 October thousands of right-wing anti-vaccine demonstrators protested in Rome, and fascists from the Forza Nuova party smashed their way into the offices of the CGIL , Italy’s biggest union federation. On 16 October, trade unionists and left-wingers responded by demonstrating in Rome to say “Mai più fascismi” (“Never again fascisms”). The organisers, Italy’s three biggest union federations, claimed 200,000, while the media said 50,000. Many report that demonstrators carried pro-vaccination slogans as well as anti-fascist and pro-union ones. The Italian labour movement’s fight against the...

Italy: complete the anti-fascist revolution

Of the three aggressor nations that made up the Axis during the Second World War, only one saw its population rise up and topple a dictatorship. While the populations of Germany and Japan remained largely supportive of the regimes right up to the surrender, the Italians ousted Mussolini in 1943, bringing an end to the fascist era. And in 1945, the former dictator was captured and killed by Italian partisans. Italians are rightly proud of this fact, but there’s another side to the story — one which we saw in action this last weekend, 9-10 October — and that’s the continuing presence of openly...

Fascists smash union office in Rome

Fascists stormed and wrecked the Rome headquarters of the CGIL, Italy’s biggest trade union federation, at an anti-vaccination demonstration on 9 October. The far right mobilised protests in multiple Italian cities to oppose the introduction of a health certificate or “green pass” to enter workplaces from 15 October (any worker who fails to produce the certificate can be suspended without pay, but not sacked). There were at least ten thousand on the streets in Rome. The attack on the CGIL building was led by activists from the neo-fascist Forza Nuova party, who used metal bars to smash their...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.