ITALY: Public sector workers demonstrate outside treasury against new austerity package likely to be approved by lower house of parliament

Record ID: 338990

  • Title: ITALY: Public sector workers demonstrate outside treasury against new austerity package likely to be approved by lower house of parliament
  • Date: 16th July 2011
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (JULY 15, 2011) (REUTERS) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI GETTING INTO CAR, CAR DRIVING OFF
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy, Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9NME1VOP6T5MEIDSY4ONIQQ58
  • Story Text: Public sector workers began a two hour strike at the end of each shift on Friday (July 15) to protest against the new austerity package expected to be approved in the lower house of parliament later in the day.
    Hundreds of workers from hospitals, schools and public offices gathered outside the treasury in Rome to complain about the budget which they say will hit those who earn the least the hardest.
    "We are striking against this austerity package which is hitting the health care side heavily and blocking contracts for public sector workers until 2017, which means we have eight years with new contracts being blocked. This means the public sector workers will be heavily hit," said Luigi Romagnoli, National Coordinator for the USB public sector union.
    With a crushing debt burden equal to 120 percent of gross domestic product and chronically weak growth, Italy faces a long and grinding battle to return to economic health.
    There is wide uncertainty over the government's capacity to make sensitive reforms in areas like labour markets to spur growth. Ratings agencies have pointed to doubts on reform implementation as grounds for questioning Italy's credit rating.
    Public sector workers feel the burden is resting on their shoulders.
    "I am here for so many reasons, I am really not happy with this government and how things are being organised. I feel like everyone is taking a piece of me it makes me feel that Italy is a great country but you cannot live well here any more," said public sector worker Anna Venturi.
    Despite the hard hitting budget, analysts like James Walston from the American University in Rome believe it is unlikely Italy will see the kind of street protests that have taken place in Greece.
    "The austerity measures which are in the budget will be very tough. A lot of people are going to suffer, particularly middle classes and lower middle classes and working classes, the poorer people. Which means that there will almost certainly be protests. But I think it is very unlikely that they will be to the same extent that they were, that they have been and will be in Greece," he said.
    The opposition has repeated its regular calls for prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to resign and make way for a broad-based government of technocrats along the lines of the one led in 1995 by Lamberto Dini, a former senior official of the Bank of Italy.
    Berlusconi himself has always rejected any suggestion he may stand down before 2013 and has named Justice Minister Angelino Alfano as his preferred successor as centre-right leader.
    The Italian Senate approve the mix of spending cuts and tax raising measures on Thursday (July 14). The lower house of parliament is expected to approve the measures at around 6.00 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) on Friday (July 15) after a confidence vote expected at around 4.00 p.m.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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