«From this square we can say that in a country where there is an attempt to divide the North from the South, the poor from the rich, the young from the old, the working class is united and starts from Turin. The awareness is that to achieve change we need to unite and this it is the first and only general strike in Europe, unitary, by category on industrial policies. A warning strike.’ This was said by Barbara Tibaldi, national secretary of Fiom, at the metalworkers’ demonstration in Turin. «We ask the government not to passively accompany, but to guide the transition and the use of the Pnrr. Steel, mobility and household appliances are strategic sectors».
“Work and the country need an overall project on industrial policies, which is why we have asked the government to abandon the path of rhetoric and propaganda and to open an inter-ministerial dialogue, with the involvement of the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, the Mef and the Ministry of Labour. There are tens of thousands of jobs at stake, and overall the stability of our manufacturing system is at risk” said the confederal secretary of the CGIL, Pino Gesmundo, on the day of the strike of metalworkers in the central regions north, “to which the full support of the confederation goes”. «Minister Urso’s announcements on the ‘state general of Italian industry’ scheduled for next spring are instrumental», continues the union leader. «You don’t need catwalks, you don’t need dozens of thematic tables at Mimit where you don’t decide, you don’t have an articulated approach and you get nothing. We need a place for discussion and proposal, for actual negotiation to define objectives and resources, to draw up a plan to support employment and to strengthen the manufacturing and industrial system, to draw up a real transition strategy”.
“Establishing a minimum wage law may be something important, but I don’t think it’s the priority at the moment. The priority is to put a hand on the precarious situation» said Rocco Palombella, secretary general of Uilm, at the metalworkers’ demonstration in Turin. «The labor market in recent years has been cannibalized. If the precariousness is fought and the workers are stabilized, there is no need to make a law on the minimum wage».
The CGIL for its part «has long maintained that public choices and investments are needed within an industrial policy framework. Strong public management is essential, all the more – concludes Gesmundo – in such a delicate phase in which it is necessary to be able to transform the energy, digital and environmental transition, now favored, not into a limit but into an opportunity for the growth of companies and the country of the resources of the Pnrr, both from the point of view of innovation of processes and products».