On 12 March the CGIL union confederation organised a four-hour general strike and a series of demonstrations across the country in protest at the government’s policies on dealing with the crisis, taxation, employment rights and migrants’ rights. The confederation claims that one million workers flooded into the country’s squares. CGIL General Secretary, Guglielmo Epifani said during a demonstration in Padua: “Unemployment rises, especially in more industrialized areas, and the government does nothing. Taxes are paid only by workers and retirees”. He warned for a labour law reform, blaming the government of “bringing down the rights through a kind of arbitration which forces workers to abandon the labour courts.”
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/358; http://www.cgil.it/dettagliodocumento.aspx?ID=13346;
Italian: http://www.cgil.it/dettagliodocumento.aspx?ID=13331
M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)