On Tuesday 8 March Repubblica will not be on newsstands and the site will not be updated for 24 hours, until 7pm on Tuesday. The compact editorial team was forced to proclaim the strike after the decision of the Gedi Group to sell the historic weekly L’Espresso. A decision that the group did not hesitate to formalize just as Europe is shocked by the war in Ukraine and while our envoys are incessantly busy talking about what is happening on those fronts.
The sale of the Espresso, which had been denied up to 48 hours earlier, is a serious act that jeopardizes the future of the entire Gedi group. Sending the parent newspaper of Repubblica and heritage of Italian journalism signals a serious lack of confidence in long-term development.
The Repubblica journalists have undertaken with commitment and maximum effort the conversion of our information offer towards the digital challenges. On the other hand, the owner confirms a reorganization strategy based mainly on cuts, downsizing, sales of publications, mergers of company branches and incentivized staff departures. Today the Espresso colleagues pay, to whom the solidarity of Repubblica and the commitment to the maximum possible support goes.
A drift that cannot be accepted further in silence. For this reason, the assembly proclaims the strike and entrusts the CoR with a package for another 3 days of abstention and gives it the mandate to ask the company binding and clear commitments on investments and company perimeter.