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Tag: Unione Sindacale di Base (USB)

  • Italy holds third general strike in three months, against war budget and for Palestine

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    Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Strikers and activists holding banner reading “No to the war economy” during November 28 general strike in Italy. Source: Potere al popolo Pavia/Facebook

    Workers in Italy have launched their third general strike in under three months, demanding an end to Meloni’s war agenda and budget.

    Italy is on general strike for the third time in less than three months, following a call by the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). Pickets, industrial actions, and demonstrations were organized in over 40 cities, with massive rallies demanding an end to rearmament plans and the war budget shaped by Giorgia Meloni’s government.

    On Friday, workers stressed that their mobilization is tied both to worsening material conditions at home and to international events, specifically the struggle of the Palestinian people – whose fate, they insist, is inseparable from Europe’s expanding war economy. As a result, those striking today reiterated their commitment to join the national march for Palestine in Rome, taking place on Saturday, November 29.

    “The Meloni government’s rearmament budget is in line with the warmongering policies pursued in recent years, but it also represents a further leap in quality, with public services being sacrificed on the altar of the war economy, all while inflation continues to rise and wages have been stagnant for decades,” USB and the dockworkers’ collective CALP wrote in one of the strike calls.

    “We want at least €2,000 in base pay, retirement no later than 62, an end to subcontracting, reduced working hours with no loss of pay, guaranteed housing rights, new public-sector hiring, and free, universal public health care,” USB added. “These are urgent needs in an exhausted country, needs that are incompatible with the government’s warmongering.”

    Italy’s social situation is “a political choice,” workers say

    Like other European governments, Meloni’s administration has aligned itself with the European Union’s armament agenda. According to trade unions, this will mean billions for the military and related industries while essential public services fall apart. CALP described the new budget as one that freezes wages, ignores inflation, and prioritizes banks and capital gains. “While prices keep rising, salaries stay stagnant and pensions are cut every year,” the collective stated. “We work more, earn less, and live worse. This isn’t a crisis: it’s a political choice, and workers are the ones paying for it.”

    Read more: Belgian workers reject Arizona’s austerity in three-day strike wave

    Calls for the government’s dismissal could be heard across today’s actions, together with refusals to accept the shift toward militarization and military enrollment. Groups including left party Potere al Popolo and student collectives CAU and Cambiare Rotta marched with striking workers, blocking roads and picketing companies set to profit from military budgets while healthcare and education are left underfunded.

    Messages of support arrived from abroad as well. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and Freedom Flotilla participants Greta Thunberg and Thiago Ávila announced they would join the 28-29 November mobilizations in person. Artists including Roger Waters, as well as international trade unions and Palestine solidarity coalitions, expressed solidarity with the strike. “USB’s strikes have shed a bright light on the shameful complicity of the Italian government and Italian corporations in enabling Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid against Palestinians,” the BDS National Committee wrote. “They have shown the power of the people and inspired many across the globe.”

    In a letter to USB, the Galician Unions Confederacy (CIG) emphasized the strike’s relevance in the context of the EU’s ReArm Europe strategy and the rise of the far right. “We reject the policies promoted by the EU and its member states, which fuel a warmongering escalation and commit to increasing military budgets at the expense of public services and social support,” CIG stated. “And we are concerned about the fascist drift toward which Europe is heading, of which the Meloni government is a clear example.”

    Read more: Is fascism back in Europe? A conversation with the Zetkin Forum

    Unlike the general strike in October, in which the confederation CGIL joined USB’s call in a rare moment of unity, the call for today’s action came from grassroots unions alone, with CGIL planning its own strike in mid-December. This, however, did not diminish USB’s determination. “Calling the third general strike in just over two months is not a decision to be taken lightly or symbolically,” they wrote.

    Instead, they reiterated that today’s strike was intended to table concrete demands and alternatives. The strike, USB added, should not be perceived as a one-off protest but as “an event that represents not only a stage of mobilization, but also a decisive political step to give a voice to those who can’t make ends meet, those working for starvation wages, and those watching their futures crushed by wars, inequality, and the choices of a government hostile to workers.”

    Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • Italian left party uncovers more cases of police infiltration in their ranks

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    Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Potere al Popolo activists with banner reading: “Against spies and repression. Let’s stand up to the Meloni government”. Photo: Potere al Popolo

    Following the exposure of an undercover operation in its Naples chapter, Potere al Popolo has reported additional cases of police spying in other Italian cities.

    After discovering that a young police officer had infiltrated Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) in Naples at the end of May, the party, together with media outlet Fanpage, uncovered four similar cases in Milan, Bologna, and Rome. The officers approached the organization primarily through one of its youth collectives, Cambiare Rotta (Changing Course), between October and November 2024, shortly after graduating from the same police course and just before being assigned to the Central Police Directorate for Crime Prevention, an agency dedicated to investigating terrorism.

    Read more: Police targets Potere al Popolo in undercover operation

    During this period, the officers actively participated in demonstrations against the cost of living crisis, in solidarity with Palestine, and in anti-militarization actions. They often presented themselves as out-of-town students with few connections at local universities. Their involvement went deep: some supported election campaigns for official student bodies. At the same time, other activists noticed inconsistencies – none of the identified officers engaged in activities beyond political work, for example, an unusual pattern in youth organizing.

    While the infiltration operations in Naples, Milan, and Bologna lasted about eight months, the effort in Rome was short-lived. Activists there quickly grew suspicious of the officer’s background story and the way he tried to approach the organization.

    Italian left party uncovers more cases of police infiltration in their ranks
    Protestors take the streets to demonstrate against rearmament and NATO. Photo: Potere al Popolo

    By late June, all those identified had ceased contact with Potere al Popolo, but one officer was present at a demonstration in Bologna when news of the Naples infiltration broke publicly last month. “The moment there was a public denunciation in that demonstration in Bologna, about the Naples episode, this person disappeared from one day to the next,” said Giuliano Granato of Potere al Popolo. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

    A threat to democratic rights and structures

    Back in May, the party had denounced the Naples case as a disturbing sign of the government’s authoritarian drift, undermining the democratic character of Italian society and constitutional values. That warning has since prompted several parliamentary parties to demand explanations from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government – none of which have been provided. With these new revelations, alongside confirmed instances of journalists being spied on, concerns are mounting over the administration’s trajectory.

    “It shows us the path of repression this government is taking through, and I quote Giorgia Meloni’s own words, ‘regime methods’,” said Anita Palermo of Potere al Popolo Rome. “We appeal to social and democratic forces, associations, and citizens to mobilize so that political activity in this country can take place in a democratic way, without fear of police infiltration.”

    During a press conference on June 27, Granato added that the infiltration and surveillance of political parties, humanitarian organizations working with migrants, and journalists were indicative of the government’s own fear. The fact that they are prepared to launch such operations shows that the government is terrified of dissent, he said.

    “But dissent is the salt of democracy,” Granato added, insisting that the experience of Potere al Popolo has far broader relevance. “If the state can plant an undercover officer inside a political party, it can do the same to a union or a newsroom.”

    Read more: “Disarmiamoli!” brings 30,000 to Rome against NATO and war

    Trade unions and social collectives have condemned the police operations as a clear attack on political and civil rights. Many interpret it as part of the Meloni government’s increasingly repressive stance toward political opposition. This comes at a moment when Potere al Popolo, alongside grassroots unions, is leading a national campaign against war, NATO, and the European Union’s rearmament agenda.

    According to the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), the attack on Potere al Popolo and its affiliated groups is emblematic of the broader political climate. “It’s a snapshot of the cultural and political values of a class that has openly aligned itself with war and rearmament,” the union said.

    “And in a climate of war, the first targets are those who oppose it clearly and unequivocally, voices that must be preemptively silenced even when they act with full transparency,” the USB warned. “The ‘war system’ and all its economic and social ramifications … allows no dissent because it demands we all silently enlist in its cause. And that cause crushes democracy, packing away our freedoms in the attic.”

    Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.