Italy

Italy: right surges as unions retreat

Befitting his image as the man of action the Italian ruling class have been fantasising about for decades, Matteo Renzi didn’t hang about after he delivered on the reactionary Jobs Act (which among other things weakens employment protection and is aimed at making the workforce more “flexible”). Renzi, contemptuously indifferent to legal and constitutional niceties, has now announced that rather than new powers to dismiss workers being applied to individual workers in dispute with their employers, the draconian terms would now be extended to groups of workers and to the public sector. The weak...

Abandoned people

At the end of December, and in the space of four days, two ships, both carrying hundreds of migrants, were abandoned by their crew in rough Italian seas, in an effort to force the Italian authorities to rescue the passengers. 800 migrants were rescued from the Blue Sky M, a ship registered in Moldova was sailing with no crew five miles from the Italian coast. And 450 people, mostly Syrian refugees, were rescued later in the week from the Sierra Leone-registered Ezadeen. A passenger said they had been at sea for ten days, half of which without food or drink. Traffickers buy old ships (“rust...

Renzi cows the unions

On Tuesday 2 December, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, won his six week long battle with the country's major trade unions. His Jobs Act became law. This fundamental attack on workers' job security and labour rights went through the Senate without a promised rebellion from the “left” of the Democratic Party, thus averting a government defeat and new elections. To square their conscious, but save the goverment, the rebels trooped out of the Senate chamber just before the vote was taken. This entirely predictable anti-climactic farce turns the spotlight back onto the leaders of the unions...

Italy: strikes rally revolt

Italy’s radical metalworkers’ union FIOM struck on 14 November, sharpening and deepening conflict with the goverment of Matteo Renzi over workers’ rights and protections. It followed a million-strong demonstration in Rome on 25 October, called by the CGIL union confederation. The strike also testified to the emergence of jointly-oordinated action by FIOM union and a number of the smaller and more radical BASE unions, especially in the public sector, and with a broadening spectrum of campaigns and movements embracing the unemployed, migrant workers, the "precariat", Social Centres , students...

Tories plan to double cuts

The Tories’ declared budget plans mean more and more cuts, and at an accelerating rate, in 2015-20. On top of the £25 billion cut from annual budgets between 2010-11 and 2014-5, they would cut another £48 billion from those budgets by 2018-9. The Financial Times estimated the numbers from official statistics and the Tories’ declared intention to have the government budget in overall surplus (current income covering both current and capital spending) by 2020. The Tories plan to do that by cuts, not by taxing the rich. They have offered tax cuts to the rich, on inheritance tax for example. They...

A million march in Rome

On Saturday 25 October, up to a million protesters marched to Rome's Piazza San Giovanni in response to the call from CGIL trade union leader Susanna Camusso to support her union's opposition to the coalition goverment of Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi. It was largest mass demonstration in Italy for over a decade. His goverment is in the final stages of introducing legislation to drastically worsen job-security conditions won 40 years ago in mass struggles. It is the latest and most ruthless gamble by Italy's rulers to comprehensively deregulate the workplace and try to prove that Renzi...

Rome march just the start

“In these last years the world of work has been shattered. The degree of electoral abstention has further increased. “Conditions have worsened for everyone. To build a shared outlook among workers is more difficult. But in our union and in CGIL a growing consensus is emerging that makes me think that the 25th [date of Rome national demonstration] will be the beginning of a real struggle. “To go on to the streets is no longer enough . We need to pose the difficult question of how to stop a government… We need to go further. The debate in parliament is over — it is no longer the place where...

Italian students lead the way against Renzi

Friday 10 October saw the first mass national protest against the latest reactionary reform of the Italian educational system introduced by the goverment of Matteo Renzi. This version of the article is longer than in the printed paper. 80,000 university and school students, together with teachers, assistants, cleaners, were joined by thousands of others. The largest single turnout was in Rome, where 20,000 marched behind a banner reading "They Fear Us United!" and called for a free, secular public system; an end to public susidy to the schools of the Catholic Church; and massive increase in...

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Italy's government fails to deliver economic recovery

After electoral success in May’s European elections, the Italian and European ruling class confidently expected Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s to bring about austerity measures. ­ And why not? So far his and previous governments’ merciless assault on the working class has only resulted in the abject surrender of the trade union leaders. These same leaders peddled lies and illusions to the working class that Renzi was “a promise of radical change”, or at least that he offered the possibility of a “new social contract”, or the birth of a new “radical Democratic Party led centre left”. Meanwhile...

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