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 workers’ protest to four hours, instead of the eight hours for other sectors.

The union leaders added insult to injury by claiming that they were only doing it because the government’s threats of a €50,000 Euro penalty for the union and fines of €1000 or €2000 for individual workers were too onerous a burden in such a time of crisis.

It was the umpteenth proof of the total failure of the line of social peace presented by the bureaucrats to the Meloni-Salvini government since it assumed office a year ago. If Maurizio Landini, leader of CGIL and one-time metalworker radical, was counting on a fruitful recognition of the year long courtship between unions and government, he has got the proverbial kick up the arse.

The strikes called by CGIL and UIL against the budget are spread region by region over a period of four days, more a continuation of the record of a year-long capitulation on the wage front, precarious working conditions, and financial regulation than throwing down the gauntlet.

The retreat has hobbled the prospect of a united militant drawing of the line. The 17 Nov action, covering the centre of Italy, has witnessed evidence of mass confusion among thousands of workers, aided and abetted by the government and its media.

The use of the law against the strike was more than an affront to the self-importance of the union tops. It was an open provocation to the working-class movement, a grave precedent for the future. It calls for a united response by the trade-union movement as a whole, on a scale equal to the depth of the provocation.