Italian Railway Workers Take Up the Struggle Against Collaborationist Assaults on Their Wages and Workplace Safety
Categorii: CUB, Italy, Union Question
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Just over a year after the Brandizzo tragedy, where five railway maintenance workers were struck and killed by a moving train, the same fate befell 47-year-old Attilio Franzoni. He was killed on October 9th, in San Giorgio del Piano on the Bologna-Venice line.
On September 6th, railway maintenance workers had been called to mobilize by the various rank-and-file unions. Then, on September 8th, train drivers and conductors joined the call. They protested the recent agreements signed by the mainstream unions, which, instead of strengthening safety measures, lowered the working conditions of RFI (the Italian railway infrastructure manager) workers to the worse conditions of external contractors, rather than the other way around.
On 12-13th of October, CUB Trasporti, the SGB (General Grassroots Union), and the Assemblea Nazionale PdM e PdB—Personale di Macchina e di Bordo (National Assembly of Engine and On-Board Personnel) called for a national strike of all on-board staff. They demanded significant wage increases, opposing the agreements signed by the Triplice (the three main confederations: CGIL, CISL, UIL), and the adoption of safety protocols for appropriate working and rest hours.
The “Commissione di Garanzia” (CGS, Italy’s regulatory body for strikes in the public sector), prompted by company management, ordered the unions to comply with the notice periods required by Law 146 of 1990, which mandates advance notice and minimum service levels for public services. The CGS declared the previous week’s maintenance workers strike, as well as any subsequent union action, „illegal.”
Railway workers across Trenitalia, Italo, and Lombardy-Trenord defied these domineering threats and took action, and upwards of 90% of workers participated. Their action effectively halted most local services and disrupted numerous long-distance and high-speed routes.
The railway workers are organizing and mobilizing outside and against the Triplice confederations, which knowingly imposes exploitative contracts. Let these struggles not only secure immediate demands, but also pave the way for the reorganizing of the Class Union in all sectors of the working class!