Demonstrations and strikes in Italy

Italian unions were on the streets last month, calling on the government, led by Giorgia Meloni of the right-wing populist Fratelli d’Italia party, to change tack.

Two of Italy’s three main union confederations, CGIL and UIL, took action on Friday 17 November when demonstrations in major cities were combined with strikes in schools, the health service, public administration and transport. The third confederation, CISL, called on its members to demonstrate on Saturday 25 November. And there were regional strikes on 20, 24 and 27 November.

The unions are concerned about budget plans for next year but also about the overall direction of the government, which Maurizio Landini, general secretary of the largest confederation, CGIL, described at the demonstration in Rome on 17 November as “an authoritarian model that undermines the Constitution”.

The unions feel that the right to strike is under threat — “a real attack on democracy”, in Landini’s words.

They point to the fact that the transport minister, Matteo Salvini, intervened to reduce the length of the transport strike, initially planned to last eight hours, to just four.