Maurizio Landini, General Secretary of the CGIL
Landini challenged by students in Milan
The secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini met the university students of State of Milan who have been in a tent in front of the headquarters of the Festa del Perdono since yesterday evening. A meeting under the banner of the desire to set up a “common battle”, in Landini’s words, to address the issue of expensive rent and more generally the difficulties of “a precarious generation”, as underlined by the students.
The informal face-to-face had just begun when a small group of people belonging to ‘Cambiare Rotta’ – an organization belonging to the grassroots trade union area – challenged the CGIL leader, guilty according to them of “deceiving the workers” . “Landini dear, i young they are leaving Italy because of your union policies”.
The accusation they make is that of an ineffective action, since the times of Renzi’s Jobs Act, or of contradictions such as the sponsors chosen for the Concertone on May 1st: “You have betrayed us, you are only here to make your catwalks”. You accuse returned to the sender: “Your counterpart is not me, it is the government and the companies that use precarious work”, replies Landini, calling one of the protesters to the confrontation.
“I’m ready to discuss”, he adds with a ‘mea culpa’: “We are the first to say that there is a problem of rupture” between the union and the young, “precarious and without rights”. “They’re right to be pissed, maybe I should have come here earlier. Indeed, in the light of this discussion, I think we will have to go and hold assemblies in schools and universities. This presence here today is also a strategic opportunity for the union to change”.
A veil of bitterness among the students of the representations such as l’Udu who have started the protest of the tents and who say they are committed to the institutional tables to bring forward concrete proposals: “They have sought visibility – they cut short – While we are making proposals, they are asking for the abolition of the agreed fee, which would mean a free market gone mad”.
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