BY ADELE OLIVERI

ROME — On October 24, more than 10 million workers stopped work and more than 1 million took to the streets across Italy in a four-hour general strike. Called by the country's three main union federations, the strike was in protest at a pension “reform” plan proposed by the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The pension plan, which has been approved by cabinet but not yet by parliament, will increase the number of years — from 35 years to 40 — people must work before they will be entitled to receive a full state pension. If approved, it will come into effect in 2008.

The general strike brought the country's schools, factories, offices, museums, post offices, trains, airplanes and public services to a complete halt.

Attendance at the mass protests was above the organisers' expectations. In Milan, Berlusconi's hometown, about 200,000 people marched to the Piazza Duomo.

Union leaders warned Berlusconi that unless he withdraws the pension plan, more strikes will follow.

[Abridged from Z-Net.]

From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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