1 – Irregular violations of rights
The ITUC Global Rights Index

Italy

In practice

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Killed on the picket line18-06-2021

Thirty-seven-year old Adil Belakhdim was killed on 18 June 2021 in front of a Lidl distribution centre in Biandrate, northern Italy. He and 25 other logistics workers from the Si Cobas union were protesting poor working conditions outside the entrance to a warehouse.
A truck driver trying to leave the warehouse drove through a line of picketers blocking a gate. A witness told Italian state TV the vehicle struck Belakhdim and dragged him for several yards. He was killed, and two other protesters were also reportedly hit by the truck and suffered minor injuries.
The picketers were pushing for better working conditions for those in the supermarket logistics sector, which includes packing and loading merchandise and food.
Lidl Italia issued a statement expressing condolences to Belakhdim’s family. It said the truck involved was from a third-party supplier and not one of Lidl’s vehicles.
The driver was taken into custody pending an investigation into alleged vehicular homicide and for failing to provide assistance to the union leader,
The union was obliged to hold its meetings outside the plant, on a dangerous road a step away from the motorway junction surrounded by logistics depots and only used by trucks, as Lidl does not provide internal spaces for the union.

New legal provisions impede freedom of assembly31-12-2019

Article 23 of the Law no. 132/2019 introduced a new administrative offense for anyone who “prevents the free movement on ordinary roads, obstructing the same with his own body”. The penalty ranges from €1,000 to €4,000 and also extends to the promoters and organisers of the road block.

Previous legislation (Legislative Decree n° 507/1999) had decriminalised roadblocks. With the new legal provisions, the decriminalisation now concerns only peaceful forms of obstruction “with one’s own body" (or human barrier), while the use of any object designed to prevent road traffic can be sanctioned.

Furthermore, the law provides that any collective action that affects the rail traffic exposes those who make it to the penalty of imprisonment from 2 to 12 years.

Such provisions focus specifically on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
actions in the logistics sector, where the most effective forms of trade union struggle in recent years have aimed precisely at hindering or stopping the traffic of vehicles and goods.

Two trade unionists arrested28-09-2018

Two trade unionists were arrested in Rome for opposing the eviction of an elderly woman. Following their arrest, activists and citizens have demonstrated outside the court against their illegitimate arrest and demanding their release.

Murder of a migrant trade unionist02-06-2018

On 2 June, Soumayla Sacko, a 29-year-old agricultural worker and trade unionist from Mali, was killed in San Calogero while collecting materials to help build the city of tents and shacks where he and his co-workers lived. For the last two years, he had been active in the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) trade union. In this capacity, he fought to improve the appalling conditions of labourers. Sacko is one of more than 1,500 people who have died while working in Italy’s agricultural sector over the past six years. His comrades in the USB responded to his death by calling a one-day strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
on Monday this week.

Solidarity strikers blacklisted in Bologna27-09-2017

After days of being locked out of their warehouse for showing solidarity with colleagues on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
in Carpiano, workers at SDA-Poste Italiane Bologna were allowed back to work on the basis of a list which, according to SI Cobas, the rank-and-file union, targeted their members. The management allowed 70 people back to work out of a workforce of 400. However, while over three-quarters of this workforce are SI Cobas members, only 11 of the union members have been allowed back.

Violent attack against strikers at SDA-Poste Italiane Carpiano27-09-2017

Tension has been rising in warehouses run by SDA-Poste Italiane, the parcel delivery department of the Italian postal service. The management at SDA presented workers with an unexpected tendering for new contracts for the running of a warehouse in Carpiano, just outside Milan. It soon became clear, however, that the management intended to go much further than just find a new outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out company. Among other things, the new outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out consortium did not intend to recognise the previous collective agreement signed with the union, SI Cobas, which includes clauses guaranteeing rights such as sick pay, an increase in the amount of annual leave and a significant reduction of working hours. Staff at Carpiano walked out on 19 September and were followed by workers at warehouses in Bologna, Rome, Turin, Pavia and Brescia.
On 25 September, while workers at Carpiano were still picketing picketing Demonstration or patrolling outside a workplace to publicise the existence of an industrial dispute or a strike, and to persuade other workers not to enter the establishment or discourage consumers from patronising the employer. Secondary picketing involves picketing of a neutral establishment with a view to putting indirect pressure on the target employer. outside SDA warehouse, a pro-employer squad of around 100 people attacked the protesters in an attempt to disperse them. This gang assaulted the workers with brutal violence. One worker was hit by a car driven at full speed and suffered injuries to his foot. Another worker was stabbed in the hand and suffered injuries in one eye. This is not the first time that warehouse workers have come under attack by gangs. In 2014 a SI Cobas organiser was savagely beaten in Milan.

Logistic worker killed while on strike in Piacenza06-09-2016

During the night of 14 September 2016, Abdelssalam Eldanf, a 53-year old father of five, was killed while he was on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
with other workers in front of the GLS logistic plant in Piacenza. He was crushed by a truck that was trying to force the picket line.
The strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
had been called against the company contracted to run the plant, the SEAM. The company had fired 37 temporary workers, as well as a group of workers organised with the USB base union, who were actively leading struggles on the workplace. SEAM had previously agreed to rehire 13 of the workers, but it then rejected the agreement without any justification. Therefore, the workers immediately went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
and blocked the exit of trucks from the plant.
According to workers on the scene, the truck driver was ordered by the chief of staff to break the picket line. Eldanf was hit, together with other two workers, one of them injured.
The Piacenza Prosecutor’s Office established that Eldanf”s death was a car accident and considered that there was no strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
or protest taking place at that moment, although the police were on site to manage “public order”. No arrest has been made.
Many demonstrations took place in Italy on 15 September to mourn the loss of Abdelssalam Eldanf. The protesters occupied the railway in Piacenza, while in Bologna a rally was attacked by the police while they were trying to get inside the train station. Other demonstrations took place in Pavia, in Naples and in other cities.

Trade union leader released after three days of protests across Italy31-01-2016

On 26 January 2016 Aldo Milani, the head of SI Cobas, was arrested and transferred to jail in Modena during negotiations he was conducting. SI Cobas is a rank-and-file union which is active in sectors, such as logistics, which are particularly exploitative and have a high presence of migrant workers. The union is known for its militant activism, and its struggles in the logistics area are causing particular contention. Milani was charged with extortion relating to industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. that the union was taking against a food processing company in the province of Modena, Northern Italy. He was released on bail on 31 January after his lawyer stated that the accusations against him were beginning to collapse.
In a context of crisis, tension between the unions on one side, and businesses and state authorities on the other, has been building in recent years. The situation reached a peak in the summer when a militant from another rank-and-file union, USB, was killed during the picket of a GLS warehouse, after managers of the warehouse ordered a truck to drive through the picket line.

Unilateral abrogation of collective agreement31-10-2013

In September 2013, the Italian Banking Association (ABI) unilaterally annulled a sectoral collective agreement covering 300,000 workers nine months before its expiry date. In October 2013, workers announced to go on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
for the first time in 13 years. Moreover, employers’ associations in the restaurant and catering sector announced withdrawal from the sectoral agreement causing pickets in Rome and Milan in from of the employer associations’ headquarters in October 2013.

Anti-union discrimination30-06-2012

In June 2012, a labour court ruled in favour of 145 members of the Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici (FIOM) - Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) who had not been reemployed by FIAT since the company began to reallocate jobs to the factory in Pomigliano. Not a single member of FIOM was among more than 2,000 newly hired employees at the Pomigliano factory. The court ordered FIAT to stop its discriminatory behaviour and in future to provide for 8.9 per cent presence of FIOM members in the workforce. In addition FIAT will have to pay compensation of 3,000 Euros to each of 19 workers who filed the suit.

Lack of collective bargaining in the public sector31-12-2010

Since 2009 the government has clamped down on public sector employees, imposing changes to the employees’ working conditions without proper consultation with the unions. In 2009 it froze public salaries for the following four years and also introduced job cuts, cancelling all precarious contracts in public education, in public research and in public administration in general. For the public education sector only this meant a job loss of about 150,000 employees. In 2010 the government also proceeded to extending the retirement age for female public servants from 60 to 65, again without prior consultation with the social partners social partners Unions and employers or their representative organisations. . The government also introduced a new general system to put off the retirement age for one or two years for everyone reaching the legal pension age.

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