Italy has been rocked by a number of strikes during the last six weeks. The municipal transport workers have been in the forefront, together with those at Alitalia. A new mood of militancy is developing among the Italian working class.
At the end of last year, the Italian multinational company Parmalat collapsed like a house of cards after its management had admitted to falsifying the accounts for a period of at least 14 years. We cannot understand what happened if we see it merely in terms of personal greed. It is not simply a question of greed. The crisis of Parmalat flows from the deep crisis of the Italian economy.
On Saturday, March 20, more than one million workers and youth marched
through the streets of Rome, in one of the biggest demos against the occupation
of Iraq anywhere in the world. This massive turnout reflects more than just
opposition to war, but also a growing militancy among Italian workers and youth.
A very important dispute has been going on for nearly three weeks now at the
FIAT plant in the southern Italian town of Melfi. Once used as an example of a
"difficult factory to organise" it is now in the vanguard of the
struggle of the Italian workers, with a display of militancy and determination
to win. The strike has provoked hundreds of spontaneous solidarity strikes up
and down the country.