The strike stops, but the unions attack Salvini: “The injunction is shameful”

After the inconclusive negotiations carried out with the trade unions and the representatives of Trenitalia and Italo, the Minister Salvini yesterday evening signed a measure of reduction in the duration of the strike called by the railway staff. Abstention from work was initially scheduled for 24 hours starting at 3 on 13 July, but with the intervention of the minister the duration was substantially halved and the strike should therefore end at 3 pm today.

The ordinance, announced with great prominence on social media channels, was motivated by minister from the need not to “leave a million commuters stranded on a day that will see temperatures around 35 degrees throughout the country”. Responding to the criticisms, Salvini said he was “absolutely proud of having given back the right to work to millions of Italians who would have been left on foot this afternoon”. At the same time, the minister wants to assume the role of mediator. Thus, in the same video, he made it known that he wanted to open a negotiating table between companies in the sector and trade unions“in order to give answers to railway workers, while respecting everyone’s right to mobility”.

The unions, however, did not take it well. Filt-Cgil he called the decision “shameful, wrong and illegitimate”, specifying that at the moment there are no steps forward in the negotiations with companies and for this reason the strike by airport ground staff scheduled for Saturday will also be confirmed.

Salvini’s ordinance, according to the general secretary of Filt CGIL, Stefano Malorgioalso risks being useless: “The general impression is of a ministry trying to make up for lost time when it’s too late. Trains and planes have already been canceled in anticipation of the strike and therefore, in any case, inconvenience to the travelers who must be blamed on whoever brought the negotiations to a standstill,” he said.

Then there is the controversy over the method of intervention, with the order signed at the last minute. The ministry, explained Malorgio, had been aware of the call for strikes for about a month and nevertheless “in these 34 days nothing has been done to avoid them while there was plenty of time and availability to do so”. For this reason, Malorgio continues, “the inconvenience to travelers must be attributed to those who brought the negotiations to a standstill,” he said.

“We will appeal to the courts competent to challenge this provision which strongly contrasts with the right to strike provided for by our Constitution”, announced the general secretary Claudio Tarlazzi and the national secretary Roberto Napoleoni of Uiltrasporti

Even the oppositions they intervene in the matter. “The decision taken by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, led by Matteo Salvini, is serious and unjustified”, said the vice president of the Pd group in the Chamber, Valentina Ghiowhile even clearer in the accusations is Nicola Fratoiannileader of the Italian Left: “Salvini’s choice regarding the railway transport strike is indecent and politically even a little infamous because the strike was declared with all the trappings provided for by law”.