MILAN (AP) — Thousands of teachers, health workers, waste pickers and others quit their jobs across Italy on Friday to protest declining purchasing power, persistently low salaries and government policies they say have weakened public services.
Italy’s most powerful unions called the eight-hour strike and mobilized marches in cities across the country to target Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s latest budget, which they say punishes schools, health care and other services. They also push for a fairer distribution of private companies’ profits among workers.
“These protests do not only address the government,” Maurizio Landini, head of the powerful CGIL conglomerate, told reporters in Bologna. “They also appeal to entrepreneurs, managers and companies, who have made profits in these years like never before.”
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The strike forced ITA airlines to cancel dozens of domestic and international flights and affected schools, hospitals and local transport. Unions called for an eight-hour strike, but Transport Minister Matteo Salvini imposed an order limiting the strike in the transport sector to four hours.
It was the first general strike since November last year. Unions have faced potential sanctions for involving the health and justice sectors, which have recently staged strikes. Italy’s railways, which have also been the target of recent labor actions, were exempted.
Italy’s healthcare sector is facing staff shortages, forcing nurses to be hired from abroad, with care in the poorer south lagging behind that in the more prosperous north.
“There are many people who go abroad because the salaries are too low,” Anna Salsa, member of the health care union UIL, said during the demonstration in Rome. “We have been forced to work double shifts to provide the minimum level of essential care.”
Protesters also cited continued increases in the cost of basic necessities. Despite indications that inflation is cooling, the Codacons consumer protection lobby says groceries for a family of four will rise by 238 euros ($251) a year in 2024 compared to last year, forcing many families to reduce their consumption.
Although starting salaries in Italy are on par with those in the rest of Europe, wage increases are not keeping pace, says Maurizio Del Conte, an employment law expert at Bocconi University in Milan. As a result, Italy’s average gross salary of 35,000 euros (nearly $37,000) per year is at the low end of European averages, well behind its G7 partners in France and Germany.
He noted that such protests have historically been more influential when it comes to center-left governments, which are friendly to unions, rather than conservative governments, such as Meloni’s far-right government.
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Paolo Santalucia contributed from Rome.
