Strike alarm in local public transport. What is now becoming an ever greater discomfort for citizens is revealed by the annual report of the Guarantor of strikes, according to which the most targeted city is Rome where Atac, in composition with creditors, records the greatest recurrence of abstentions from work: 24 proclamations in 2017, of which 13 actually implemented (on average more than one each month and usually on Fridays), to add another 4 stops in the local public transport service for joining general strikes. Throughout Italy, in 2017 there were 121 days of strike, equivalent to 1 day of stop every 3, an increase compared to 107 in 2016.
But it's not just local public transport that is worrying. The Lighthouse Authority also highlighted how the number of strikes proclaimed reached 2.448 in the sector of essential public services, 4% more than in 2016. A figure which on a concrete level, between spontaneous revocations and interventions by the guarantor on strikes, however saw the real abstentions from work drop to 1.617. Guarantor Santoro Passarelli then highlighted how the "traditional" and more representative trade unions strike less than the others. And at the same time he underlined some "circumventions of the law" with "anomalous" forms of protest such as the use of assemblies or recourse to sick leave, "which must be supervised and intervened in".
“In principle – these are the words of the Guarantor – it can be stated that by now almost all strikes were declared in compliance with the law. This is a confirmation of effective implementation and rooting of the same legislation which indicates the achievement of a good level of civilization of the conflict in essential public services”. Furthermore, it will be necessary to monitor and counter the numerous "mini-strikes" by minor and scarcely representative trade unions, often proclaimed and not carried out, or limited to a small number of members but with significant damage for users, it would be advisable to think of a "regulatory intervention aimed at verification of trade union representativeness”.
Going to look at other sectors, waste collection is also doing badly, which again last year totaled 103 days of abstention from work, 86 in 2016, and in that of the postal delivery service with 51 days affected by strike actions compared to the 42 from the previous year. Strong inconvenience also in air transport where 260 strikes were declared, 20% more than in 2016 and 159 actually carried out, with a 35% increase over the previous year. Only the rail transport sector bucked the trend which records a 50% drop in strikes compared to 2016. The slowdown is attributable, says the Guarantor, "to the renewal of the national contract as well as the company contract of the Ferrovie dello Stato group".
