El transporte es el emblema de este desastre: desde los sectores que impulsaron el desarrollo general de trabajo y el país han transformado después de años de recortes salariales, la liberalización salvaje, el empeoramiento de las condiciones de trabajo y a la precariedad, a los lugares de los que huir con sus piernas elevadas.

Durante algún tiempo hemos venido denunciando el hecho de que durante el transporte el colapso de los salarios en Italia también está vinculado a otros dos factores muy a menudo subestimado o ignorado: la progresiva expulsión de cualquier forma de democracia, que ahora está afectando a todos los sectores de manera transversal, combinada con la continua reducción de los espacios de huelga, gracias a una inicua ley y ampliamente utilizado para proteger el empleador partes.

En los últimos meses, los contratos se han renovado en los sectores de la gente de mar, puertos, logística y de autobús, tranvía y tren conductores con aumentos de menos de 6% en promedio por año, en comparación a un año completo de inflación de más del 17%, dejando a más de 10% en el bolsillo de las empresas.

Todo esto ocurrió sin hablar de una plataforma de primera con las categorías y sin someter el contrato a un referéndum. La negociación del contrato de Transporte Aéreo incluso ha reabierto sin ni siquiera haber sido la más mínima consulta, ni siquiera por error.

Si, como en el más llamativo el caso de los trabajadores de ferrocarril, sino también de transporte público local, los dueños de ignorar las huelgas (el más democrático de la forma de participación de los trabajadores) participaron de 60 a 80%, debido a que las normas imponen limitada duración, con la garantía de un 50% de la actividad y alucinante vacuo, en el final es aconsejable para descargar en el los usuarios de la incapacidad de escuchar a las solicitudes de las categorías.

Es increíble cómo en la mayor empresa italiana – la FSI Grupo - o la más grande empresa de transporte público en Europa – la Atac de Roma-, la RSU han caducado por más de 7 años, pero la renovación es impedido, mientras que la práctica en todas partes es ahora la cita de la Empresa Representaciones de arriba.

El sector del transporte es sólo la parte más visible de la punta del iceberg de lo que sucede a trabajar en Italia.

Convincing the working class it has no right of opinion or speech and that the strike is now a sterile exercise as useless is the great weapon that has been put in hand for too many years to those who take away our wages from the governments of all colors and from those unions now reduced to notaries in defense only of their hegemonies and prebends. And then we’re surprised that people don’t vote anymore.

Es el momento de tomar de nuevo la palabra, la práctica democrática en el lugar de trabajo y reconstruir el espacio de conflicto, sin la cual el contrato de las demandas de los casi limosna.

Por esta razón, vamos a traer el patrimonio de la discusión de la asamblea de todos los transportes, celebrada en Bolonia en el interior de la plaza, de 5 de abril, en Roma, por el salario y contra el rearme.

The post ITALY: Lost wages, Denial of Democracy and Conflict in the Workplace—USB Transport will be in the Streets on April 5 for Wages and Against Rearmament appeared first on Labor Today.

El futuro más allá de la fábrica. Un montaje creado con el objetivo de superar lo puramente corporativa dimensión de los delegados y delegadas; para romper el cerco y maestro acondicionado que lleva a la corporativismo.

Los trabajadores de los sectores de los puertos y la logística, que también son parte de la cadena de valor, hicieron su contribución a la reunión. Un eje de trabajo, de los trabajadores de la categoría, que tiene como objetivo reconstruir el protagonismo y contractuales de la fuerza de la clase obrera, hoy dividido por la organización del trabajo, se inclinó por la venta y políticas de reparto de la CGIL, la CISL y la UIL.

Tanto en los discursos y en el documento final aprobado por la asamblea puso de relieve cómo la crisis industrial, a pesar de su dimensión, se han mantenido alejados, dejando una mano libre para los jefes, a los que ahora se están preparando para pasar a los trabajadores y el país, los costos de la reestructuración industrial y los de un ausente y a la quiebra de la política industrial.

La constante caída en los salarios, la pérdida de poder adquisitivo, la crisis en el sector industrial, la innovación tecnológica, la guerra y el problema del medio ambiente están estrechamente vinculados.

Puesta en marcha de Europa, o la Defensa Europea Plan, actualizaciones de Mario Draghi industrial plan de conversión para peor, esa es otra de 800 millones de dólares tomados de la riqueza producida por los trabajadores y se asignan a la industria de la guerra y el complejo militar.

La asamblea inició la movilización contra la guerra, para la renovación de los contratos, los salarios y el estado de bienestar, una movilización que se llevará a cabo dentro y fuera de las fábricas, con pancartas, folletos, asambleas y de la huelga de iniciativas. En un país saqueado por los bancos y las multinacionales que han tenido y continúan teniendo los recursos del bienestar y de la infraestructura y de la fuerza ya que los bajos salarios para permanecer por debajo de la inflación, Aumentar los Salarios más bajos de los Brazos se ocupa de toda la clase obrera.

Un camino de lucha que converge y se cruza la segunda y la importante fecha de 5 de abril, en la Plaza Santi Apostoli, en Roma, donde una gran iniciativa en la plaza de ver la totalidad de la USB confederación exigiendo aumentos en los salarios, las pensiones, el salario mínimo, la reducción de las horas de trabajo, no más contratos, no hay más precariedad, necesitamos la inversión pública en vivienda e infraestructura. No para el rearme y no a la guerra.

The post ITALY: The National Assembly of the USB Industry Launches the Mobilization for Wages and Against European Rearmament appeared first on Labor Today.

This strike, called by our affiliate, USB, is a bold and necessary response to the devastating policies of the Meloni government and the European Union that deepen social inequalities, exacerbate poverty, and intensify exploitation. These policies prioritize the profits of banks and monopolies, fuel militarization, and undermine democratic freedoms and workers’ rights.

The WFTU unequivocally condemns the Italian government’s actions that align with the broader imperialist agenda, which promotes war as a solution to the capitalist crisis. We denounce the allocation of resources to the war economy, the escalation of military spending, and support for imperialist interventions, including in Ukraine and Palestine, while workers and peoples are left to suffer under precarious conditions, starvation wages, and deindustrialization.

The struggles of the USB reflect the just demands of the Italian working class and the broader society for fair wages, decent work, quality public services, environmental protection, and genuine democratic freedoms. The situation that the Italian working class faces, highlight the urgent need for resistance against the attacks on fundamental rights, the privatization of public goods, and the assault on civil liberties.

We call upon all militant class-oriented trade unions and progressive forces worldwide to express their solidarity with the USB and the working class of Italy. We reaffirm that international solidarity is our strongest weapon in the struggle against imperialism, exploitation, and war.

The post The WFTU Expresses Solidarity with the General Strike in Italy on December 13th appeared first on Labor Today.

Our Choice is Very Clear and Consistent

Faced with an important contractual season as never before, in a phase of uncontrolled increase in the cost of living due to the crisis and war policies, if the government comes to the table with resources that cover only one third of what salaries have lost in purchasing power due to inflation, the task of a trade union organisation worthy of the name is to denounce all this, break the consociative climate and be consequential in its choices.

Outside a table emptied of value, inside the workplace alongside those who carry on the public administration, guaranteeing rights, services and the welfare state.

The strike of 31 October grows in the attention and consideration of women and men workers,
confirming the centrality of our choice and the reasons that led us to leave the negotiating table.
A wave of indignation and discontent that certainly cannot be overcome by the Government’s choice to make available further resources for a paltry 0.22% (by the way, not for everyone) that leaves the loss of purchasing power of wages at 10%.

Today it is more necessary than ever to invite all public workers to strike, to remind them of the fundamental role they play, to offer them coherent platforms and perspectives.

Building conscious struggles is the most important goal: the square on 31 October will shout these watchwords to the Minister of the Public Service.

The post ITALY: USB Declares General Strike on 31 October appeared first on Labor Today.

We will be present as all the years at the procession of the memory of the massacre of August 2, 1980 in Bologna: a manifestation of pain and anger against the plots of the “strategy of tension”, with their trail of blood involving fascists, the P2 Masonic lodge, apparatuses of the State, up to NATO.

Decades of ousting and cover-ups that have not spared even to tarnish the Palestinian resistance in order to hide instigators and executors.

We will be there because, yesterday as today, it is important to remember and understand that we must resist against the further authoritarian drift of this government with its security decrees and its batons; because we must resist the war propaganda that all wants us all and all enlisted with NATO, against the enemy on duty and in favor of those who, like the Israeli government, continue with impunity to make massacres in the Middle East, blowing on the fire of a world conflict.

USB Bologna

The post ITALY: USB Bologna Marches in the Square for Remembrance of the Massacre on August 2, 1980 appeared first on Labor Today.

USB reiterates its opposition to the war economy put in place by the Meloni government, in particular we denounce support for the Israeli government while the latter commits genocide in Gaza. Tuto impoverishes the country and the workers, as well as making Italy complicit in massacres like the one underway against the Palestinian people.

Our country is experiencing an external war, but also internal, to stop it USB has solutions: raising wages and protections for workers, in particular in terms of health and safety at work. We want increases of at least 300 euros in the paycheck, a legal minimum wage of at least 10 euros, reduce the hours for the same salary on 4 days of work per week, the introduction of the crime of murder at work.

Attached is the document approved by the assembly.

—–

The National Assembly of USB delegates and delegates that met in Rome today May 16 in the Auditorium of the National Library denounces the dangerous bellicist drift taken by the governments of the European Union and the Italian government led by Meloni. Increased military spending, support for the arms industries, repeated military aid shipments to Ukraine, the leadership of the Aspides expedition to the Red Sea, and support for Netanyahu’s genocidal government are all signs of a willingness to drag our country into a very dangerous spiral and that is already heavily affecting our economy. USB declares that not a penny or a soldier must be made available to this spiral and that our country must pull out of every military adventure and support the stop to the genocide of the Palestinian people and its right to a land and their own self-determination, as invoked for a long time by the international community.

Also because of these policies of war the economic conditions of our country are worsening. The government’s employment data is false and only constitute smoke in the eyes of the public. The growing impoverishment that we are suffering is the result of a policy of containment of wages and widespread precarization that date back to the last decades but that this government is increasing further, together with the constant cut of the Social State, starting from Health.

For this reason, the assembly recognizes itself in the need to launch a campaign to fight for the salary that points to: increases on the basis of at least 300 euros as a recovery on the cost of living, increases in the next contractual renewals that take into account the strong profits accumulated by companies and that do not represent the umpteenth opportunity to increase the flexibility of work and exploitation, restoration of a mechanism of automatic indexing of wages and pensions, a minimum legal wage on the minimum tables.

In the face of the strong technological restructuring already underway, which will also be supported by the European funds of the PNRR, it is urgent to promote a strong reduction in working hours that includes the week of 4 days of work and a working day of no more than 7 hours and 1-2 to ensure the protection of employment and a life not subjugated to the needs of companies. Machines need to reduce fatigue and not just increase productivity.

To stop the wave of massacres that is bloodied workplaces, drastic measures are needed that reverse the trend: to pass a law that introduces murder at work, empower RLS more and restore a far less extensive definition of procurement than the current one.

Continue to fight for the defense and relaunch of public services as an element of rebalancing of inequalities, proper to the capitalist system, and, more generally, for all the mechanisms of indirect wages, starting from the housing question with the reintroduction of the fair canon, in addition to the need for a million new social housing.

Finally, it is necessary to stop the precarization of work by abolishing the mandatory part time, to introduce the just causal to fixed-term work, to fight festive work and the proliferation of shifts, to bring back to the Publication of the P.A. that in recent years has been outsourcing and absorbing the much precarious that has been created.

On this general platform that wants to raise wages, reduce time, stop precariousness and give workers the power to safeguard health and safety at work, the Assembly of USB delegates and delegates opens a consultation campaign in all sectors and territories, with the aim of launching a season of mobilizations and struggles in the next autumn.

On June 1st USB will be in the streets in Rome on this platform and against the government of war, it will continue to be present and active in the mobilizations in support of the Palestinian people.

Unione Sindacale di Base

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Tomorrow’s strike constitutes a continuation of the previous militant initiatives and struggles such as a series of assemblies in the various Italian ports organized after February 27th, 2024 when USB proclaimed a national state of agitation in the port sector as well as while the port workers of PSA Genoa have been on strike since 2 April to obtain USB’s rights to participate in the elections of the terminal workers’ delegates.

 The international class-oriented trade union movement joins its voice with the struggling port workers in Italy and expresses its international solidarity with their just demands.

The post WFTU Solidarity Statement with the Port Workers Strike in Italy appeared first on Labor Today.

We need to act and mobilize against war starting from the workplace. As we need to rethink the economic development model to avoid the impacts of the effects of climate change, affecting the poorest areas of the planet.

The bosses continue to seek only their immediate profits, but those who work within the production and supply chains know well that the crisis is imminent, indeed it is literally already among us.

We must call it by its name: it is capitalism.

Wars are the expression of this, the inevitable confirmation of a model that places private interests at the center to the detriment of communities and workers. The destruction of the environment and the planet is simply the other side of this coin.

The crisis in the Middle East, the massacre of Palestinian People and the resulting tensions in the Suez Canal today directly touch our pockets, considering that 40% of Italian GDP is represented by exports.

Ports, logistics, production trade, the “value chain” sectors, are directly impacted from this situation in Italy and are already experiencing worrying slowdowns.

Connecting to all the generalized mobilizations already called to claim the immediate stop the genocide in Gaza, the USB Workers Category announce the first public initiative where discuss togheter the real triggers of the global crisis, conflicts, climate changes and the consequent impacts on the on the wages and living conditions of millions of workers.

For peace and environmental justice, we must continue to mobilize from below.

Together with the USB Workers Category, they will be present and contribute to the initiative:

• Giuliano Mariucci (Ottolina TV)
• Markos Bekris (PAME ENEDEP Port Union)
• Gabriele Rubini (Chef Rubio)
• Giorgio Cremaschi & Marta Collot (Power to the People)
• Rajeh Zayed (President of the Palestinian Arab Democratic Union)
• Riccardo degli Innocenti (Researcher)

On 10 FEBRUARY 2024 at 10.30 am at the “Music for Peace” in Via Balleydier 60, GENOA

Unione Sindacale di Base

The post ITALY: Channels of Conflict—Workers of the “Value Chain” Facing the Impacts of War and the Environmental Crisis. 10th February, Genoa appeared first on Labor Today.

We are not arms we are men, this is the slogan often shouted by migrant labourers.

Today these men wanted to launch a new challenge, not only to the bosses who exploit them, not only to the institutions that oppose them. A challenge also to all their brothers, TO GET OUT OF THE EXPLOITATION, TO BE PROTAGONISTS, TO CULTIVATE THE LAND FOR THEMSELVES NOT FOR THE PROFIT OF ANYONE ELSE. They decided to occupy two hectares of land, they decided to work it and sow it, they decided to harvest tomatoes, they decided to feel free.

A signal of hope not only to migrant labourers, but also to all those who want to give a signal of change, of reaction to the passivity rampant in the world of work. This signal must be picked up not only in Torretta Antonacci, it must be a signal that involves migrant workers and Italian workers in all the different regions of Italy.

Three million hectares of uncultivated and abandoned land in Italy, public land left abandoned with unpresentable reclamation and fostering interventions, it is time for uncultivated land to go into the hands of those who want to work it, under public control and cooperative management.

Let’s give strength to this idea, to this project, let’s invite all those who can lend a hand to the experience of the Torretta Antonacci labourers, to contact us, to reserve the bottles of tomato puree that will be produced in the coming weeks, to make available their knowledge and experience to bring this idea to life in other places.

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