TURIN. Stop the war immediately. The trade unions condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and call for every possible effort to be made to achieve peace. First of all for the Ukrainian people who are suffering but also because “we cannot live in a war economy that aggravates social inequalities and risks creating new poor”, explains Enrica Valfrè. Yesterday the leader of the CGIL of Turin, with the secretaries of CISL and UIL, Domenico Lo Bianco and Gianni Cortese announced the return in the presence of the May 1st march which after two years of stop linked to the Covid pandemic will start on Sunday morning from Piazza Vittorio .
In Turin as at the national level, the slogan chosen is “to work for peace”. Just as the watchword that will cross all the demonstrations is to increase wages. A request that those taking part in the Turin demonstration will shout with more force given that the post-Covid recovery has brought with it an increase in jobs, especially precarious jobs (in over 90% of cases) which increase economic and social uncertainty. Therefore, we need “good work”. And so alongside a national platform that aims to ask the Draghi government for more resources for low-income families, the subalpine unions are trying to urge the Municipality to find the tools to do so. «Two years ago – explains Lo Bianco – we emphasized the need to stop Turin’s decline. That was a defensive dispute but it had positive proposals that must be recovered through a constructive platform that aims at growth and development ».
And this time, given that the funds are there, and are branded Pnrr – “even if they risk no longer being sufficient”, warns Cortese – the unions are asking the Municipality to “sign an agreement to guarantee better conditions of work in terms of security and wages “. And Valfré then explains: «We want to create jobs but not poor jobs. We must also give signals in this direction when it comes to the great events that should be one of the interventions that should guarantee the revitalization of this city. It would be an important signal that not only volunteers were employed for their management ». Who knows if from the stage in Piazza San Carlo, where the demonstration will end, Stefano Lo Russo will give an answer to this and other union requests. Yes, because after the parenthesis of Chiara Appendino who has always participated in the march but choosing not to intervene from the stage, the exponent of the Democratic Party has made an opposite choice that recovers a historical tradition of the subalpine left in the city government.
A choice that certainly represents a sign of the mayor’s political attention as well as the participation of the councilor for work, Gianna Pentenero, at the press conference: «There were signs of recovery, but the war has brought us back to a dark page. Turin has many open wounds and job security must be a priority as well as being an attractive city for investments and job creation ».
From the stage – in addition to the delegates from the construction, health and procurement sectors and a representative of the Gioc – Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia will also speak, “in these difficult years he has always been close to the world of work”, explained Valfrè. Moreover, even in the letter that the head of the Turin Church sent to La Stampa a few days after the handover with his successor, Don Roberto Repole, the need to find a common vision to guarantee, in a structural way, the overcoming of the poverty without entrusting it only to solidarity.