“It is serious that a minority, however small in number, affects the life of a city when the vast majority of workers have different opinions. We respect everyone, but we cannot accept that it is always the weakest who pay". These are the words of the neo Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio to the newspaper 'Il Messaggero' regarding what happened in Milan on Tuesday when the strike by ATM vehicles brought traffic to its knees in the city a few days before the inauguration of Expo.
The minister has in mind a decisive change of pace on the matter regulation of strikes in the transport sector given that we are on the eve of two epochal events such as Expo and the extraordinary jubilee in Rome. “We have to make a leap in quality – says the minister -. We cannot leave stranded millions of visitors who will come to our cities, nor can we leave those who take the bus or subway to go to work every morning on the ground. What is the point of inviting the world to visit Pompeii if we then make them find the gates closed? We have to give ourselves new rules".
And what could be the new rules for the minister? The minister speaks before “revision of the law on strikes” then goes straight to the crux of the matter: “Decisions as serious as the transport strike in a city must obtain the consent of the majority of workers. A bit like it has been happening for some time in Germany”. So for the minister, the decision to call a strike in such delicate public sectors as that of transport will have to be put to a vote. “It's acceptable too the 51%” of the consents of the workers to the strike, specifies the minister Delrio who adds that larger majorities (75% is necessary in Germany) would be asked only on certain particular occasions. In the end – adds Delrio – it all boils down to a simple matter of common sense”.
