Another general strike in Italy has been announced for this Friday, November 14th, that will affect almost all forms of travel and public transport throughout the country. Such a strike seems like a crippling affair when reported by English news sources, one with the potential to ruin plans and strand travelers. However, as with everything else in the Bel Paese, strikes are not the same as they are “back home” and the amount of fear and panic they induce is mostly unnecessary.
So how do strikes really work here? Well, strikes work pretty much the way other stuff works here – that is to say, not very well. In the US, a strike means the negotiations have failed and the result is a total shutdown until an accord can be reached. The threat of a strike is powerful because if a strike comes there’s guaranteed to be serious losses. It’s the end of the line. And if the strike was ultimately carried out half-assed, then it would undermine the threat of future strikes.
Here that’s not the case. Here, they are optional. They’re flexible. It means, maybe the bus will run, and maybe it won’t.
To understand strikes you have to understand Italian unions. They operate with or without the support of the people they are calling to strike. They are essentially independent entities who lobby government for laws that govern workers rights and will affect different categories of employment, but they don’t require employees to join the union in certain sectors to lobby for them.
When you see news about strikes, what you’re seeing is not a notice from organized workers themselves, whose collective voice is being expressed by a union official. Instead, it’s the union which is calling the workers of that sector to strike – and whether they do or not is up to them.
A few important things to note, to get a better grasp of how severe a strike can be:
- the trains to the airport from Termini station, such as the Leonardo Express, cannot be affected by strikes. This is guaranteed by law.
- often, the Freccie, or high speed trains, cannot be affected by strikes – only the regional ones.
- for public transportation, the buses and metro are obligated to run for a few hours that are crucial to get people to and from work – around 8-9am and from 5-6pm.
- workers don’t have to notify employers that they intend to strike, and can’t be reprimanded legally for participating, so companies have to operate in the grey area of not knowing how much a strike will affect them either.
To sum up: a transport strike doesn’t mean that there won’t be buses or that you won’t be able to get where you’re going. It means there will be delays and you can expect to waste some time and have to be a bit flexible and easy going about it.
But, wait, that’s what it’s always like here, isn’t it?
Updated news about the actual hours and the companies/unions involved can be found at this Italian website which is fairly easy to decipher and updated regularly: http://www.mit.gov.it/mit/site.php?p=scioperi
Great article Steve. I didn’t really know anything about strikes and how they work in Italy so that was interesting. What’s also interesting is that I’ve noticed that after some time here I’ve instinctively starting reacting to the news of a “sciopero” by shrugging my shoulders. Boh.
I agree with your article! There was a vaporetto strike while we were in Venice last October. It was a 1-day thing and barely noticeable. Italian life does go on!
Once again, a very informative article Steve.
Thanks for keeping me “in the loop”.