Italian rank-and-file unions hold nationwide strike against austerity and warWorkers across Italy struck on Thursday against austerity, genocide and war. The action was called by sindacati di base, Italy’s rank-and-file unions. It mobilised workers in transport, air traffic, ports, motorways, logistics, healthcare, schools, universities, public administration, and fire services, including in Turin, Milan, Bergamo, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples.
It was the latest in a cycle of working class resistance in Italy. It followed nationwide strikes in September against the Gaza genocide, in November against the Meloni government’s austerity and rearmament budget, the Manovra 2026, and a May 18 strike and protest against the Israeli seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Each of these actions was called by rank-and-file unions.
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The May 29 strike was called by a coalition of unions including CUB (Confederazione Unitaria di Base), SGB (Sindacato Generale di Base), SI Cobas (Sindacato Intercategoriale Cobas), ADL Varese, and USI-CIT. These unions emerged and grew precisely because workers in critical sectors including logistics, ports, and education correctly concluded that CGIL, CISL and UIL served to impose concessions and productivity deals on the workers. They function, as one logistics worker told the WSWS in Rome, “like bosses.”
National rail struck from 21:00 on May 28 to 21:00 on May 29, and air transport for the full day, while local-transit strikes varied by city. In Rome and Milan, disruption fell mainly on municipal transport, with guaranteed-service windows only within the legal bands surrounding normal rush-hour traffic in the morning and evening. A protest march started in Milan from the Piazza della Scala.
In Naples, trains and certain metro lines faced delays, and Si-Cobas members staged a sit in at the Port Authority to protest dismissals of rank-and-file union members and arms shipments to Israel. Union members, including dockers and logistics, metal and health contract workers, marched to the offices of Grimaldi, which controls port operations. They reportedly obtained a commitment to improve trainee working conditions but no commitment on Israel.
In Turin, rail and air transport were shut down, though municipal transport functioned normally. There was an evening rally at the Piazza Costello, and a daytime protest march organized by the “Torin
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