The picture that is emerging on a general and international level is
increasingly bleak. Belligerent technocrats like Putin, Netanyahu,
Erdogan, Meloni, and most recently the Trump cyclone and others, are
bringing policies of death and devastation across the planet.
Governments now only talk about wars, rearmament and increased military
spending, to the sole benefit of arms manufacturers and to the detriment
of the working classes and the popular classes who suffer the continuous
worsening of living and working conditions. In Italy, as a consequence
of the war economy, salaries and pensions already among the lowest in
Europe are being sucked up by growing inflation and the ever-increasing
cost of living. A fertile scenario for the growth of far-right
Nazi-fascist movements in a perspective of a return to the past. We are
witnessing the very sad competition between Meloni and Salvini to see
who is more Trumpian, while Trump with his policy of raising very high
duties opens up the prospect of workplace closures and large-scale
expulsions of the workforce.
In this overall scenario, the situations of the various work sectors are
framed, some of which are going through crucial phases of struggle.
In the metalworking sector, the contract expired about a year ago and
negotiations have stopped, with Federmeccanica having presented its own
counter platform for the reduction of previous conquests. While
Stellantis is implementing early retirement incentives for 300
redundancies in Pomigliano and 50 in Pratola Serra, instead of new hires
for the relaunch, at Arcelor Mittal the closure of the multinational
company is expected, with the dismissal of 71 employees in San Mango sul
Calore. Many other companies are in similar situations and soon it will
be even worse.
Turning to healthcare, we must say that healthcare is one of the most
taxed sectors. We all remember at the time of Covid how employees in the
sector were praised by the government and the many promises to improve
their conditions and those of the public service. Once the emergency was
over, the exact opposite was done. Salaries even decreased, caught in
the grip of ever-increasing inflation and increases in the cost of
living. Not to mention the continuous worsening of the public service,
and above all the waiting times for important services, unless you turn
to private healthcare for a fee or give up treatment. All this because
there is no investment in the public healthcare sector, preferring to
direct resources to military spending and military missions abroad. If
the renewal of public healthcare contracts is very penalizing in terms
of salaries, the situation in private healthcare facilities under
agreement, very present in Lombardy, is very serious, where contracts
are renewed with the blackmail that half of the costs must be covered by
the public service. English: We are faced with a jungle of private
contracts, one worse than the other, without rules, so it is the
employer (often represented by ecclesiastical bodies) who chooses the
most convenient contract to apply, often even with the option of being
able to apply multiple contracts in the same company for the purpose of
dividing their employees. This is what happened at the "Sacra Famiglia"
in Cesano Boscone (MI), where the public health contract was replaced by
the private Aris contract. A second private Uneba contract was later
introduced, until in 2020 this latest Uneba contract was applied to all
employees, significantly worse, with the agreement of Cgil, Cisl, Uil
which greatly penalized the former Aris. All this had two effects: USI
sanità became the largest union internally due to its consistent
opposition, together with Cobas P.I., but at the same time a climate of
mistrust among workers was generalized. However, in this phase, USI has
managed to organize numerous protests and struggles internally to
respond, as has already happened, to shifts imposed that were too heavy.
The latest internal agreement was once again not signed by USI, since
the shift allowances of 3.50 euros, already granted to former Aris
workers and extended to everyone, were not accepted, nor by Cobas, even
though this was an improvement compared to previous agreements.
Furthermore, the renewal of the Uneba contract was concluded with a
salary increase of 145 euros spread over three years, a pittance if you
take into account inflation and the suction of progressive taxation. The
issue of low wages is the main cause of the exodus of employees, who
flee the company, with a further increase in exploitation for those who
remain. A similar problem is found at the San Raffaele hospital in
Milan, where many, especially nurses and technicians, are running away
from the company. Since the transition from the public health contract
to the private Aiop contract was imposed in 2020, the situation has
gradually worsened. Here too, the cause of the exodus is mainly low
wages, with the aggravation of the increase in workloads which in turn
becomes a contributory cause for further layoffs. The company's response
to this situation of degradation is to outsource some sectors of the
service, including part of operating rooms, with repercussions on the
quality of the service itself. USI Sanità has always had an important
presence, together with CUB, within the company. Recently, the RSU
called a general assembly where a platform of demands was approved with
the following points: equalization of salaries to public health levels;
economic progression with a salary band increase to enhance skills and
experience; an incentive plan linked to turnover, to recognize the work
done; improvement of working conditions, bringing the departments back
under the management of employees to ensure stability and quality of
service. The company has proposed salary increases only to some
categories, such as nurses, a proposal rejected by the general assembly.
Now the mobilization and strike phase will begin. USI Sanità has always
pushed ahead in situations where there is the prospect of a general
mobilization for the demand of a single contract in the entire
healthcare sector. This would put an end to a situation of
discrimination that only those who use the sector to make a profit on
health benefit from.
Let's move on to the transport sector, which is experiencing strikes
that are a big thorn in the side of the government, also because the
Minister of Transport Salvini is already doing his part in the
malfunctioning of the same. Here too, the main discomfort of the workers
in the category is the low wages resulting from "fake" contracts
previously signed by the confederate unions. The dispute for the renewal
of the expired contract is still ongoing, which is having a very
complicated path. On one side there is the renewal platform decided by
Cgil, Cisl, Uil, a very vague platform decided by the same union
bureaucracies, while the grassroots unions, not recognizing themselves
in it, are striking independently on their own alternative platform. At
a certain point the Confederals signed a preliminary agreement, without
submitting it to a referendum. The agreement reached was deemed
unacceptable by the grassroots unions, starting with the completely
inadequate wage issue and in response they continued to strike
independently. Minister Salvini has tried in every way to reduce the
effects of these strikes by abusing the interpretation of the rules that
regulate strikes in public services, such as reducing strikes called for
the whole day on Fridays to half time. But an appeal to the court by USB
on these prohibitions has clearly proven the Minister of Transport
wrong. Faced with a struggle that continues to be successfully carried
out by the grassroots unions, Cgil, Cisl, Uil have been forced to try to
reopen negotiations on the contract. Numerous strikes in local public
transport are planned for the month of April.
Even in ATM (Azienda Trasporti Pubblici di Milano) the phenomenon of
employee flight is manifesting itself in large numbers, especially in
the sector of vehicle drivers. And to think that ATM was once one of the
most sought-after jobs! Here too the main cause of exodus is low wages.
For young people hired who enter and who often come from the South,
entry-level wages are very low and do not cover the costs of their
accommodation. Added to this, for drivers, is the stress of traffic,
night shifts that are also heavy, managers who make careers on
disciplinary measures and the risk of assault, also due to the poor
functioning of the rides due to company liability. The ATM company,
following the general privatization policy of the council and Mayor
Sala, also applies it to public transportation, with low wages and cuts
in rides, while profits, also deriving from strong increases in tickets
(2.20 euros per ride) allow the company to make investments abroad. The
situation has led to the creation of citizens' protest committees. As
USI, we participate, with CUB and Sol Cobas, in "Autoferrotranvieri
Uniti", an aggregation of grassroots unions. The proposal that we as USI
launched last May 1st for free public transportation, also linked to the
environmental fight, has now been adopted by all the grassroots unions
present within ATM.
For some years now, logistics has been a particularly "hot" sector, in
which immigrant labor is often used and heavily exploited, even with the
threat of losing their residence permit. The same contractual rules are
often not respected, such as the payment of overtime or the expected
category changes or the non-recognition of seniority increases in
addition to the failure to comply with workloads and workplace safety.
The structure that makes them particularly weak and subject to blackmail
is the same procurement system on which this sector is based, so that
every time there is a renewal with a tender, workers are at risk. The
contract is won by the one who makes the offer at the lowest cost for
the client company. Therefore, the winning company takes it out on the
same employees, often not respecting the contractual rules or even using
lower-cost contracts such as cleaning. Then, when workers become aware
of their rights and start very determined struggles, with strikes,
pickets, blocking of goods, a strong repression intervenes with attacks
by the police and the carabinieri, with complaints, dismissals,
sometimes lawsuits against workers and unions for damages. There have
also been cases of employers using private squads paid to attack
strikers. It also happens that disputes are won through struggle, but
the company that has the contract disappears, even dissolves the
company, because it no longer finds it convenient to manage, leaving its
employees without even paying the severance pay due, for which a long
process begins to try to recover this reimbursement from INPS. Despite
all this, the many important struggles and mobilizations that have taken
place in recent years in the sector have overall improved conditions,
especially wages, less exploitation and greater contractual respect that
have allowed the grassroots unions to often take away the hegemony of
Cgil, Cisl and Uil, accomplices in creating such conditions of super
exploitation. As USI we are soon organizing a one-day conference to
address with the workers of the sector the main issues for an adequate
union response.
Milan is certainly becoming a laboratory of social conflict. Every day
there are initiatives of mobilizations, even more than one in the same
day, alongside counter-culture initiatives. Truly characterizing are the
increasingly frequent attempts, although laborious, to find the unity of
the various areas of opposition on common objectives, as in the case of
the national demonstration of April 11 in Milan for the cessation of the
war and the genocide of the Palestinian people organized by all the
grassroots unions.
Enrico Moroni
https://umanitanova.org/lavorator%c9%9c-in-lotta-a-milano-spezzare-la-repressione-lo-sfruttamento-e-il-ricatto/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
increasingly bleak. Belligerent technocrats like Putin, Netanyahu,
Erdogan, Meloni, and most recently the Trump cyclone and others, are
bringing policies of death and devastation across the planet.
Governments now only talk about wars, rearmament and increased military
spending, to the sole benefit of arms manufacturers and to the detriment
of the working classes and the popular classes who suffer the continuous
worsening of living and working conditions. In Italy, as a consequence
of the war economy, salaries and pensions already among the lowest in
Europe are being sucked up by growing inflation and the ever-increasing
cost of living. A fertile scenario for the growth of far-right
Nazi-fascist movements in a perspective of a return to the past. We are
witnessing the very sad competition between Meloni and Salvini to see
who is more Trumpian, while Trump with his policy of raising very high
duties opens up the prospect of workplace closures and large-scale
expulsions of the workforce.
In this overall scenario, the situations of the various work sectors are
framed, some of which are going through crucial phases of struggle.
In the metalworking sector, the contract expired about a year ago and
negotiations have stopped, with Federmeccanica having presented its own
counter platform for the reduction of previous conquests. While
Stellantis is implementing early retirement incentives for 300
redundancies in Pomigliano and 50 in Pratola Serra, instead of new hires
for the relaunch, at Arcelor Mittal the closure of the multinational
company is expected, with the dismissal of 71 employees in San Mango sul
Calore. Many other companies are in similar situations and soon it will
be even worse.
Turning to healthcare, we must say that healthcare is one of the most
taxed sectors. We all remember at the time of Covid how employees in the
sector were praised by the government and the many promises to improve
their conditions and those of the public service. Once the emergency was
over, the exact opposite was done. Salaries even decreased, caught in
the grip of ever-increasing inflation and increases in the cost of
living. Not to mention the continuous worsening of the public service,
and above all the waiting times for important services, unless you turn
to private healthcare for a fee or give up treatment. All this because
there is no investment in the public healthcare sector, preferring to
direct resources to military spending and military missions abroad. If
the renewal of public healthcare contracts is very penalizing in terms
of salaries, the situation in private healthcare facilities under
agreement, very present in Lombardy, is very serious, where contracts
are renewed with the blackmail that half of the costs must be covered by
the public service. English: We are faced with a jungle of private
contracts, one worse than the other, without rules, so it is the
employer (often represented by ecclesiastical bodies) who chooses the
most convenient contract to apply, often even with the option of being
able to apply multiple contracts in the same company for the purpose of
dividing their employees. This is what happened at the "Sacra Famiglia"
in Cesano Boscone (MI), where the public health contract was replaced by
the private Aris contract. A second private Uneba contract was later
introduced, until in 2020 this latest Uneba contract was applied to all
employees, significantly worse, with the agreement of Cgil, Cisl, Uil
which greatly penalized the former Aris. All this had two effects: USI
sanità became the largest union internally due to its consistent
opposition, together with Cobas P.I., but at the same time a climate of
mistrust among workers was generalized. However, in this phase, USI has
managed to organize numerous protests and struggles internally to
respond, as has already happened, to shifts imposed that were too heavy.
The latest internal agreement was once again not signed by USI, since
the shift allowances of 3.50 euros, already granted to former Aris
workers and extended to everyone, were not accepted, nor by Cobas, even
though this was an improvement compared to previous agreements.
Furthermore, the renewal of the Uneba contract was concluded with a
salary increase of 145 euros spread over three years, a pittance if you
take into account inflation and the suction of progressive taxation. The
issue of low wages is the main cause of the exodus of employees, who
flee the company, with a further increase in exploitation for those who
remain. A similar problem is found at the San Raffaele hospital in
Milan, where many, especially nurses and technicians, are running away
from the company. Since the transition from the public health contract
to the private Aiop contract was imposed in 2020, the situation has
gradually worsened. Here too, the cause of the exodus is mainly low
wages, with the aggravation of the increase in workloads which in turn
becomes a contributory cause for further layoffs. The company's response
to this situation of degradation is to outsource some sectors of the
service, including part of operating rooms, with repercussions on the
quality of the service itself. USI Sanità has always had an important
presence, together with CUB, within the company. Recently, the RSU
called a general assembly where a platform of demands was approved with
the following points: equalization of salaries to public health levels;
economic progression with a salary band increase to enhance skills and
experience; an incentive plan linked to turnover, to recognize the work
done; improvement of working conditions, bringing the departments back
under the management of employees to ensure stability and quality of
service. The company has proposed salary increases only to some
categories, such as nurses, a proposal rejected by the general assembly.
Now the mobilization and strike phase will begin. USI Sanità has always
pushed ahead in situations where there is the prospect of a general
mobilization for the demand of a single contract in the entire
healthcare sector. This would put an end to a situation of
discrimination that only those who use the sector to make a profit on
health benefit from.
Let's move on to the transport sector, which is experiencing strikes
that are a big thorn in the side of the government, also because the
Minister of Transport Salvini is already doing his part in the
malfunctioning of the same. Here too, the main discomfort of the workers
in the category is the low wages resulting from "fake" contracts
previously signed by the confederate unions. The dispute for the renewal
of the expired contract is still ongoing, which is having a very
complicated path. On one side there is the renewal platform decided by
Cgil, Cisl, Uil, a very vague platform decided by the same union
bureaucracies, while the grassroots unions, not recognizing themselves
in it, are striking independently on their own alternative platform. At
a certain point the Confederals signed a preliminary agreement, without
submitting it to a referendum. The agreement reached was deemed
unacceptable by the grassroots unions, starting with the completely
inadequate wage issue and in response they continued to strike
independently. Minister Salvini has tried in every way to reduce the
effects of these strikes by abusing the interpretation of the rules that
regulate strikes in public services, such as reducing strikes called for
the whole day on Fridays to half time. But an appeal to the court by USB
on these prohibitions has clearly proven the Minister of Transport
wrong. Faced with a struggle that continues to be successfully carried
out by the grassroots unions, Cgil, Cisl, Uil have been forced to try to
reopen negotiations on the contract. Numerous strikes in local public
transport are planned for the month of April.
Even in ATM (Azienda Trasporti Pubblici di Milano) the phenomenon of
employee flight is manifesting itself in large numbers, especially in
the sector of vehicle drivers. And to think that ATM was once one of the
most sought-after jobs! Here too the main cause of exodus is low wages.
For young people hired who enter and who often come from the South,
entry-level wages are very low and do not cover the costs of their
accommodation. Added to this, for drivers, is the stress of traffic,
night shifts that are also heavy, managers who make careers on
disciplinary measures and the risk of assault, also due to the poor
functioning of the rides due to company liability. The ATM company,
following the general privatization policy of the council and Mayor
Sala, also applies it to public transportation, with low wages and cuts
in rides, while profits, also deriving from strong increases in tickets
(2.20 euros per ride) allow the company to make investments abroad. The
situation has led to the creation of citizens' protest committees. As
USI, we participate, with CUB and Sol Cobas, in "Autoferrotranvieri
Uniti", an aggregation of grassroots unions. The proposal that we as USI
launched last May 1st for free public transportation, also linked to the
environmental fight, has now been adopted by all the grassroots unions
present within ATM.
For some years now, logistics has been a particularly "hot" sector, in
which immigrant labor is often used and heavily exploited, even with the
threat of losing their residence permit. The same contractual rules are
often not respected, such as the payment of overtime or the expected
category changes or the non-recognition of seniority increases in
addition to the failure to comply with workloads and workplace safety.
The structure that makes them particularly weak and subject to blackmail
is the same procurement system on which this sector is based, so that
every time there is a renewal with a tender, workers are at risk. The
contract is won by the one who makes the offer at the lowest cost for
the client company. Therefore, the winning company takes it out on the
same employees, often not respecting the contractual rules or even using
lower-cost contracts such as cleaning. Then, when workers become aware
of their rights and start very determined struggles, with strikes,
pickets, blocking of goods, a strong repression intervenes with attacks
by the police and the carabinieri, with complaints, dismissals,
sometimes lawsuits against workers and unions for damages. There have
also been cases of employers using private squads paid to attack
strikers. It also happens that disputes are won through struggle, but
the company that has the contract disappears, even dissolves the
company, because it no longer finds it convenient to manage, leaving its
employees without even paying the severance pay due, for which a long
process begins to try to recover this reimbursement from INPS. Despite
all this, the many important struggles and mobilizations that have taken
place in recent years in the sector have overall improved conditions,
especially wages, less exploitation and greater contractual respect that
have allowed the grassroots unions to often take away the hegemony of
Cgil, Cisl and Uil, accomplices in creating such conditions of super
exploitation. As USI we are soon organizing a one-day conference to
address with the workers of the sector the main issues for an adequate
union response.
Milan is certainly becoming a laboratory of social conflict. Every day
there are initiatives of mobilizations, even more than one in the same
day, alongside counter-culture initiatives. Truly characterizing are the
increasingly frequent attempts, although laborious, to find the unity of
the various areas of opposition on common objectives, as in the case of
the national demonstration of April 11 in Milan for the cessation of the
war and the genocide of the Palestinian people organized by all the
grassroots unions.
Enrico Moroni
https://umanitanova.org/lavorator%c9%9c-in-lotta-a-milano-spezzare-la-repressione-lo-sfruttamento-e-il-ricatto/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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