Strike reduced to four hours: CGIL and UIL reverse

Despite the barricade tones and defiant intentions, from the press conference of the CGIL and UIL secretaries, Maurizio Landini and Pierpaolo Bombardieri, a substantial setback emerges in tomorrow’s general mobilization. «For transport, the strike is reduced from eight to four hours, from 9am to 1pm, as a result of the injunction. As we are responsible for what happened, we take note and protect workers who are at risk of being hit by economic and criminal sanctions.”
With these words, the CGIL leader explains the reasons for the decision. A choice that was at the center of the prolonged, until yesterday, confrontation with the Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini. A few minutes pass and the deputy prime minister himself comments: «Common sense, workers and citizens won. The right to strike is not questioned.”
A question and answer that dramatically explains the climate of recent days. The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, also intervenes briefly: «It is not the government’s intention to change the legislation on the right to strike.

The injunction was an absolutely shared choice. I believe that Deputy Prime Minister Salvini referred to an indication that came from an independent authority, that is, trying to reconcile the issue of the right to strike with that of public services and citizens’ rights”. «But currently – explains Meloni on the sidelines of an event – the government’s intention is not to modify the right to strike». But the two secretaries continued to add fuel to the fire. «In our opinion, the reasons for the injunction are unfounded. We are checking – said Bombardieri – if there are conditions to contest the text”. Then Landini echoes him: «We are evaluating all possible areas of action, the reasons for the prediction are outside of law 146 (of 1990 which regulates the right to strike in essential public services, ed.)».

It is Landini himself who makes it clear to what level the tone of the “unprecedented” clash has reached. «What is starting now is the beginning of the mobilization, we will not stop and we will not accept any more interventions that go in that direction», states the CGIL secretary. Then the exhortation to “take to the streets”, not just as a sign of “protest”, because the objectives are changes to “tax and social security reform”. The main target of Landini and Bombardieri’s attacks is Carroccio leader Salvini. “It had never happened in the history of our country, since the post-war period, that a minister intervened to prescribe and prevent workers, in this case in transport, from exercising their right to strike”. A precept that became inevitable in the opinion of the Ministry of Transport, given that even the appeal of the competent entity to reshape the mobilization went unnoticed. The two union representatives would like tomorrow the transport sector, from local to rail, from the maritime sector to taxis, to end November The date on which the CISL called for a demonstration in Rome in Piazza Santi Apostoli masses for eight hours.

When the press conference reaches the final stage, Bombardieri relaunches. “Our autonomy in relation to the parties is very clear.” What about accusations of involvement in politics? “If it’s about union politics, let’s do politics.” And further: «We want to bring results home by negotiating». A statement that leaves many perplexed given what happened 48 hours ago, when all attempts at agreement failed at the discussion table. At the end of the event, the second news of the day arrives: Bombardieri, also on behalf of Landini, declares: «There is no intention of competing for the European Championship. None of us, neither Landini nor I, have this intention. Delegitimization work is beginning, we will respond to attacks blow by blow.” CISL’s position is different. General Secretary Luigi Sbarra explained that his party “is in full mobilization. We have planned a large national demonstration on Saturday, November 25th, in Rome, in Piazza Santi Apostoli. At this stage, we consider that the general strike is wrong because it creates inconveniences for Italians, because it places more sacrifices on the shoulders of workers and because it risks transferring social tensions to companies over problems that do not concern the responsibility of the business world. .”