This is based on a discussion with one of the workers who is involved in the base union CUB and on some newspaper articles.
On Monday and Tuesday last week cleaning-workers have organised actions on the railway stations in Rome, Palermo, Milano, Florence, Bologna, Naples... in order to prevent the announced dismissals, wage cuts and deterioration of working conditions. The state-owned railway trust FS - meanwhile divided in several companies - has put the cleaning contracts out for tender. The cleaning itself is being done by several private companies. End of December should have been the dicision on the new contracts. The FS had announced that it would cut the budget for cleaning by about 40 percent. The dicision was then postponed till end of February. The actions of the workers aimed at forcing the private companies to take back the reduction of the budget and the announced dismissals.
The workers, who usually do not meet centrally but in different places all over town before they clean trains and railway stations, started a slow-down-strike, which means that they turn up at work but then do not do much all day. On Thursday the railway stations in Milano were covered in waste. Monday and Tuesday the workers also blocked the rails for hours. A few hundred workers were involved in some cities. Many trains were stopped. The passengers had to take the subway in order to get to other trains. The railway company also organised busses.
Altogether 13.000 workers work for the private cleaning companies, in Lombardy alone 5.000, in Milano 2.000. If the plans of the FS - part of a bigger restructuring program - get throught about 5.000 workers will be dismissed. The rest is waiting for wage cuts of about 150 to 200 Euro (in one report they even spoke about 350 Euro; the wage ranges below 1000 Euro a month - also depending on the length of service). In Milano about half of the workers are over 40 years old and mostly Italians. Many of the younger workers are immigrants, many from Asia and Northern Africa. The majority of the cleaning workers here are men.
The atmosphere is tense, because the conditions have deteriorated for years. Now the workers want to wait before they block the rails again until the decision on the cleaning contract has been made. There were more negotiations about that at the end of last week. The ultimate decision is due this week.
A worker has said in an interview that so far they had not blocked commuter trains because they did not want to create problems for other workers. But if nothing changes in the near future they would make sure that everybody could hear and understand them, even if that meant criminal charges and arrests.
Let's see...