Italy Protests

People worn down by years of economic stagnation and austerity are suddenly giving vent to their frustrations with a spate of strikes and spontaneous protests which have taken politicians by surprise. Scarcely a day goes by without Italy's main cities being disrupted by workers, students or angry citizens' groups.  Two major trade union confederations  in Italy held nationwide strikes over changes to the labour market, prompting huge rallies in more than 50 cities across the country. The third big confederation, the CISL, will join them in a separate strike for public sector workers on a date to be announced. At least 40,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Rome. The strike by CGIL and UIL unions hit public transport as well as hospitals, schools and civil administrations across Italy.

The main target of Friday's strike action was the "Jobs Act", aimed at loosening restrictions on firing employees without having to pay high severance payments, particularly for recently employed workers and weakens a right to protest unlawful dismissal. With unemployment at record levels and youth jobless rates topping 40 percent, unions say the burden of the reforms and spending cuts is being placed unfairly on workers and will do nothing to revive growth.

The industrial action is the first ever by two of Italy's largest union confederations against a centre-left government. Centre-left administrations have traditionally had close relationships with the unions.

Among the protesters was 32-year-old Domenico Antonucci, who has worked in the building's cafeteria for the past decade, earning 1,000 euros ($1,240) a month. Until recently, he thought he was one of the lucky few of his generation with a full-time, permanent contract that would see him through to retirement. But with his layoff notice, he says, he will now face what will very likely be a lifetime of underpaid short-term contract jobs - the fate of so many Italians of his generation. "We're not asking for special treatment," says Antonucci, who says he has had to struggle to pay the bills on salary that is low, but average. "We're just asking to keep our jobs."

Italy's National Institute for Statistics reports that 17 percent of Italians, about 10 million people, live in relative poverty. More than six million - 10 percent - live in absolute poverty, mostly in the country's southern regions. Unemployment is around 15 percent - 45 percent for young people.

"The young people in Italy have been bearing the weight of the high turnover jobs and the older people have decided never to change jobs in order not to lose that job security," says Elisabetta Addis, economics professor at the University of Sasseri, referring to what many in Italy call "employment apartheid." Elisabetta Addis says that precisely because so many people are excluded from the full-time jobs unions are trying to protect, it is a waste of energy to focus on labor reform as the magic solution to Italy's recession.

Union leader Fausto Durante explains “Renzi thinks trade unions, social actors and citizens associations are the bad heritage of the 20th century. It's not only an Italian attitude; at the European level we're experiencing this cancellation of what we used to call social dialogue. This kind of approach leads to social tension and clashes between different parts of society, and that's exactly what's happening in Italy.”

Anger among the unemployed, the young and people living in deprived is taking the form of "do-it-yourself" protests among people who had previously been desperate but apathetic. It is targeted at politicians of all stripes and has seen a surge in support for the anti-immigrant Northern League party. In Tor Sapienza, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome, the residents have been protesting for days against a local center for immigrants, throwing rocks and setting bins alight. "We are surrounded. There are the prostitutes over there, the gypsies down there, here the immigrants. It's just too much," said pensioner Milena Pecci. Most locals claim they are not racist, just exasperated by rising crime, squalor and lack of basic services like street lighting. Visiting politicians of all colors, including the center-left mayor, have been greeted with boos and derision. Corcolle, another eastern suburb of Rome, was the scene in September of similar violence to Tor Sapienza. 

Italians used to clear political divisions are disoriented by Renzi, who is often more popular among conservative voters than left-wingers, contributing to the unstructured stream of protests. "Nobody knows if this is a left-wing government or a right-wing government and this creates enormous confusion and uncertainty," Luca Ricolfi, sociology professor at Turin University and one of Italy's foremost political commentators, said. Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, reviled on the left, publicly supports many of Renzi's policies, and while they are resented by large sections of Renzi's Democratic Party.