Italy union mulls strike as austerity cuts bite

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

ROME, May 26 (Reuters) - Italy's 24 billion euro ($30 billion) austerity plan threatens to further erode government popularity and may lead to a national strike by a big union which contends it hurts the weak and spares the rich.

The government late on Tuesday approved slashing funds to local governments and freezing salaries for civil servants, joining European peers like Spain and Portugal with spending cuts aimed at staving off contagion from the Greek debt crisis.

But Italy's largest union says the plan is deeply flawed.

"If I'm a citizen who earns a million euros a year thanks to capital gains, I don't shell out a single euro in the set of sacrifices," Guglielmo Epifani, head of the CGIL union that has about 5 million members, told La Stampa daily.

"There's no need for big words -- I expected more equitable austerity measures. It doesn't seem to me that's the case."

He said the union will decide on a national strike after evaluating the austerity measures, which Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is expected to present later on Wednesday.

Strikes are common in Italy, but a national strike would sharply increase the pressure on Berlusconi, who so far has shrugged off the crisis as a figment of the left's imagination.


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[David__77]

1. The workers movement of Europe is reactivating. Good news.

The communist parties and unions are at the core of this movement, as the social democrats have utterly capitulated to the right-wing neoliberal economic agenda. Unfortunately, in Italy, the "left" is in a total and complete shambles and must be rebuilt from scratch.