Transport strike

The biggest transport strike in 25 years paralysed Italy last Friday.

Airports, railways and metro stations and ferries ground to a halt in the eight-hour strike. Motorway toll booth operators joined in the action as did cable car workers and even funeral hearse drivers!

The transport strikes (called by Cgil, Cisl and Uil union federations, which together have some 12 million members), came after three weeks of talks between the unions and the Romano Prodi coalition government collapsed.

The trade unions have demanded an increase in public funding in transport services in the government's 2008 budget but this has been rejected by the 'communist' (PdCI) transport minister Alessandro Bianchi.

The government is instead bowing to pressure from Italy's capitalist class which insists that public expenditure is reined-in to reduce the budget deficit.