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Millions of Italian workers, including UNI members, are striking for three hours on Monday, Italy’s three biggest unions, CGIL, CISL and UIL, said.



“We stand in solidarity with our Italian colleagues,” said UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings. “Working people are seeing the pensions they have worked hard for unfairly slashed without any recourse. We support everyone who is out on the streets today. In Italy and around the world, the 99% are standing up and demanding justice.”



The Italian unions are protesting measures they say place a heavy burden on working people, including cuts to the pension system and unfair changes in labour relations and collective bargaining.



“There is no equity in this approach,” Jennings said. “Italy needs a plan to grow.”



Millions of workers across Europe have taken to the streets to protest austerity measures in Portugal, Ireland, the UK, Greece, Belgium, Lithuania and now Italy.



“Working people are being asked to pay a heavy price for the financial crisis even though they didn’t cause it,” said UNI Europa Regional Secretary Oliver Roethig. “The cuts to pensions and other public spending in Europe coupled with higher taxes are not going to help rebuild the European economy. The only real solution is to help working families get back on their feet and build the economy from the bottom up.”



UNI is concerned that the financial crisis is being used as an excuse to cut collective bargaining rights and weaken trade unions and workers’ rights generally in Italy.



In August, the European Central Bank (ECB) put pressure on Italy to implement austerity measures that included an attack on workers’ rights. Jean-Claude Trichet, who was about to leave his post as president of the bank, and Mario Draghi, who was about to take over, wrote a letter pushing for changes to collective bargaining and hiring and dismissal rules, vast deregulation and privatization of public services, making pension eligibility rules more “stringent” and raising the retirement age for women and consider cutting wages for public sector workers.



“The ECB tried to push these measures on the Italian government even though they have no legitimate roll setting policies for Italy,” Roethig said. “On top of that, they advised the government to impose changes to collective bargaining instead of actually bargaining, contravening the fundamental human right recognised by international law. We will work with our Italian affiliates to fight off these attacks and ensure that workers’ rights are respected.”



The Italian government has also announced full deregulation of shop opening hours, now giving companies carte blanche to set opening hours at night and on weekends and holidays. UNI supports the unions Filcams, Fisascat and Uiltucs initiatives for mobilizing for the strike today to fight against the austerity package and to promote quality employment measure in the commerce sector in Italy.