Transport Workers on Strike Across Italy

Alitalia, Italy’s national airline, was especially affected by the strike. (Flickr)

Italian transit workers cooperated in a nation-wide strike on Friday, October 25. Protesters  expressed discontent with public and private sector transportation employees about low wages, poor working conditions, and pensions, according to the Independent. 

Dubbed the “Black Friday Strike” (il venerdì nero), the strike especially affected major Italian cities such as Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin, and Palermo, according to the Local. Hundreds of flights arriving to and departing from Italy have been cancelled by airlines such as Alitalia, British Airways, Ryanair, and EasyJet, reports the Independent. Furthermore, pilots, airline cabin crews, airport staff, and air traffic control monitors are all participating in the strike, closing down many smaller Italian airports. 

Rome in particular was subjected to additional striking, as trade unions representing up to 30,000 municipal employees pledged to join the general strike on Friday, as reported by Wanted in Rome magazine. The strike encompassed government employees such as metro and bus drivers, teachers and janitors in public schools, museum workers, lawyers, and other social service employees. More than 75 percent of waste collection workers joined the strike in Rome. 

The general strike in Rome in particular is a collective response by three major trade unions in Italy –– CISL, CGIL, and UIL –– to the poor management and “humiliating” working conditions faced by the various professions, as well as the municipal government’s “controlled liquidation” of the construction company of the city’s Metro C project, according to Wanted in Rome.

Many Italian motorists and commuters faced extreme traffic delays. Most forms of public transit were unavailable and motorway employees, including toll booth workers, were also on strike, forcing traffic to trickle through at a slow pace.