General strike in Italy: new date and follow-up assembly

As we had announced, grassroot unions are calling a nation-wide general strike in Italy. The date has been brought forward to the 11^TH OF OCTOBER.

At the same time, a follow-up public assembly has been called in Rome on the 16^th of October to keep the struggle up and plan further actions. Our comrades’ statement can be found below.

We wish our comrades the best of lucks in their unflinching defence of workers’ rights and conditions in Italy.

Grassroot unions mobilisations

General strike 11^th of October

Nation-wide public assembly 16^th of October

We continue the build-up, in every workplace and everywhere, to the nation-wide general strike called jointly by grassroot unions on October 11^th in Italy against the policies of the Draghi government and the EU.

We are building a real and permanent state of mobilisation, with meetings and actions in the workplace and everywhere, aiming to get onboard all those movements and social sectors that oppose the plans for overexploitation, precariousness, unemployment and social and environmental devastation that the bosses are trying to impose on us on a national and international level.

The undersigning trade unions, representing different tendencies and ways of organising, believe that the conditions to subscribe to the national assembly initially planned for September 19^th in Bologna are no longer met.

Instead, we aim to take our differences as a starting point and regain the course towards joint action that we undertook a few months ago. Our goal is to make all the mobilisations focusing on the issues included in the general strike platform successful. The way to achieve this is a nation-wide public assembly on October 16^th in Rome. All the social organisations active in this struggle are invited.

The assembly will be an important moment for the many social actors that are joining the October 11^th strike, to make themselves heard and continue the struggle. Also, for the grassroot trade unions calling the strike, to continue in their joint course of action. Something that is required to stop the drift of growing repression and attacks on the fundamental rights of the working class.

We also state our commitment to the mobilisations planned for October 30^th, on the occasions of the G20 meeting in Rome and the PreCop 26 in Milan on October 2nd, as will be planned in the meetings taking place in the coming days and weeks.

A press conference will be held in the days leading up to the October 11^th general strike to inform about these and other issues.

CONFEDERAZIONE COBAS, COBAS SCUOLA SARDEGNA, COBAS SANITA’, CUB, SGB, UNICOBAS, ORSA , USI CIT, USB