April 17, 2002	Wednesday	Safar 3, 142

ROME, April 16: Millions of Italians staged a general strike on Tuesday to protest government labour reforms, filling city centres with carnival-like demonstrations that brought much of the country to a standstill.

Air and rail transport ground to a halt, schools, banks and post offices shut down, and production lines at many top firms stood idle in Italy’s first full-day work stoppage for 20 years.

Delighted union leaders said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would have to back down in the face of people power and drop controversial plans to make it easier for companies to fire staff in certain circumstances.

The centre-right government, elected last year on a promise to modernise Italy, said it was ready to resume negotiations.

But it indicated that it was not prepared to renounce its reforms, which became even more emotive last month when one of their authors, government adviser Marco Biagi, was assassinated by left-wing extremists.

Italy’s three biggest unions estimated that as many as 13 million people had heeded Tuesday’s strike call out of a total workforce of 21 million. They said at least two million had taken part in protest rallies up and down the country.

Independent observers said they thought the number of strikers was closer to six million.

“This is an extraordinary day,” Sergio Cofferati, the leader of Italy’s largest union, the CGIL, told a demonstration in the Renaissance city of Florence.

“Government and business will realise that we won’t stop until we have reached our objectives.”

The strike was aimed at a small part of Berlusconi’s planned labour reform — an adjustment to Article 18 of Italy’s labour code, which forces companies to reinstate anyone sacked without “just cause”.

‘JOBS FOR LIFE’: Italian companies find it almost impossible to lay off staff without entering into complex negotiations with unions, creating a “jobs for life” mentality that the government says is stifling the labour market and hindering industrial development.

Most economists say the proposed changes are mild, and that Italy must go much further to make the job market more flexible. But unions say Article 18 is the cornerstone of workers’ rights, and that the planned changes are the thin end of the wedge.

Railway stations were deserted from early morning, with only unsuspecting foreigners turning up in the hope of catching a train. “See you tomorrow,” one ticket seller told a disappointed Spanish tourist at Rome’s central station.

Air and rail traffic were due to return to normal gradually later in the day as staggered eight-hour stoppages by pilots, drivers and air traffic controllers drew to an end.

Bathed in spring sunshine, flag-waving strikers filled squares around the country, chanting anti-government slogans and blowing shrill whistles.

“Everyone who isn’t Berlusconi, jump now!” sang protesters in Florence as they hopped down the street.

Companies started to count the cost of the day’s lost work. Italy’s second largest union, the CISL, said some 90 percent of its members at the car maker Fiat SpA had joined the strike and 85 percent of members at the cable and tyre firm Pirelli SpA.

Italian bosses have so far backed Berlusconi’s call to overhaul labour statutes that were drawn up in the 1970s, and ministers insisted on Tuesday that Italy could not avoid change.

“Once the (strike) rituals are over, we will have to return to the negotiating table because everyone knows there is a problem with the labour market, with the tax system and with pensions,” said Reforms Minister Umberto Bossi.

Florence Italians of all ages and job descriptions marched through the cobbled streets of Florence on Tuesday, waving a sea of red banners in protest at government plans for labour reform.

As part of the biggest industrial action Italy has seen in two decades, around 200,000 people gathered in this famed Tuscan city where Sergio Cofferati, the leader of the largest and most militant union, addressed the crowds.

While the strike was called to protest plans for altering one article of the country’s labour laws, the variety of students, pensioners, labourers and designers gathered in Florence suggested a broader demonstration against all government policy.

“We are striking against everything,” said Renzo Tonini, 36, wearing a mask of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with a nose like Pinocchio, the fairy tale boy whose nose grew when he lied.

“We’re striking for school reform and the fact that taxes have risen for some of us,” he said.—Reuters