------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
ITALY: MILLIONS WALK OUT IN GENERAL STRIKE By John Catalinotto On Oct. 18, for the second time in six months, millions of Italian workers held a one-day general strike, accompanied by mass demonstrations throughout the country. The issue was government policy. Workers are facing a change in the labor law that would remove job protection under the hard-won 1970 law called Article18. The workers were also protesting budget cuts that the CGIL union confederation says will cost up to 280,000 jobs. The strike brought much commuter transportation to a halt. It tangled regional and air traffic. In many places high school and university students joined workers for mass demonstrations. Among the bigger actions were a march of 200,000 in the northern industrial city of Turin, home of the FIAT automaker; 100,000 in Milan; the same number in Rome: and 40,000 each in Venice and Florence. Some 50,000 people-- the biggest such demonstration since 1945--came out in Palermo, Sicily, to protest the planned closing of the local FIAT plant. Somewhere between 1 million and 2 million people demonstrated throughout the country. Although the two smaller labor union federations, the CISL and the UIL, did not join this strike as they had in April, it was still an enormous job action. The CISL and UIL had reached an agreement with the government in the summer, agreeing to give up job protections after some minor concessions by the regime. Many placards targeted Italy's right-wing premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi. He was pictured as a long-nosed Pinocchio because of his propensity to lie to the Italian workers. Berlusconi's rightist coalition, which includes the Northern League as well as National Alliance, the successor to Mussolini's fascist party, had won the Spring 2001 elections against a center-left coalition. This latter group, the Olive Tree, had led Italy into NATO's war on Yugoslavia and was overseeing a declining capitalist economy that has continued to decline under the billionaire premier. Berlusconi has adopted a foreign policy that can only be described as servile to U.S. imperialism. Despite this willingness to push Italy into U.S.-led wars, Bush has yet to invite the Italian premier into the inner imperialist circle. Besides protesting the elimination of Article 18, the strike and demonstrations protested the government budget, its attack on workers' rights and the drive toward war. Observers in the area around Venice reported that one of the most shouted slogans was, "No war in Iraq," and that many placards and banners, including those brought by individuals, called for solidarity with the Iraqi people against the U.S. war. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
