Italian Workers Rally Against Rearmament

Trade Unions Demand Higher Wages and Industrial Strategy

Photo credit: Mauro Zanella

Workers and grassroots trade unions in Italy continue mobilizing against rearmament and the war economy, demanding a national industrial strategy that addresses their needs. At least 15,000 people joined a new demonstration in Rome on 23 May to reaffirm these claims and express solidarity with the people of Palestine, Cuba, and others affected by the ongoing war drive led by the West.

The trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) described Saturday’s demonstration as a “working-class, grassroots, militant mobilization” that exposed connections between dissolving salaries, a failed industrial vision, and the rise of the war economy. “An event that brought together different disputes, regions, and sectors under a single demand: those who generate the country’s wealth must once again have a say,” USB stated.

One central point was salaries, no longer sufficient to guarantee a dignified life for most of Italy’s population. A report by the national statistics institute ISTAT, published just days before the demonstration, shows that 11 million people are at risk of poverty, while 5.7 million already live in absolute poverty. According to the report, almost half of the entire population was unable to save anything last year, and “one in four people wouldn’t know how to address an unexpected expense,” the media outlet Contropiano wrote.

“The cost of living is rising, utility bills are going up, and essential goods are getting more expensive,” USB pointed out. “Paychecks are staying the same while everything else is getting more expensive.”

These numbers stand in stark contrast to claims made by the Meloni government, which chooses to focus exclusively on improved employment rates compared to previous years and announcing more advancements as an effect of new investments in the so-called defense sector. “We are in the midst of a structural transformation of capital, driven by war, rearmament, precariousness, and the compression of labor,” USB warned ahead of the demonstration. “Rising prices, supply instability, and energy costs are direct consequences of this new order.”

“One key point emerges from this picture. Wages and war are two sides of the same coin. The policies that fuel the arms race are the same ones that squeeze workers and reduce their incomes.”

“In this country, the only policy that governments pursue—whether it’s Meloni’s government today or the centrist, ‘left,’ or technical governments of the past—is to allow large corporations and multinational companies to come here, take vast amounts of public money, incentives, subsidies, aid, handouts, you name it,” said Giuliano Granato from the left political party Potere al Popolo. “They come here, take the money, shut down, leave, lay off workers, and leave everything in ruins.”

“We can no longer afford 1,700 layoffs at Electrolux, layoffs at Jabil, and the dismantling of our entire industrial fabric. We need not only to raise wages—which are the lowest in Europe, with skyrocketing inflation and soaring prices for fuel, staple foods, and utility bills—but we also need an industrial policy.”

One of the central proposals for changing course that Potere al Popolo has been campaigning for is a minimum wage of 12 euros (approximately USD 14) per hour to ensure workers can make ends meet. Additionally, the left party and grassroots trade unions have insisted on taxing the extremely wealthy and upholding workers’ demands in the international arena—starting with severing ties with Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza and offering concrete support to Cuba in the face of ongoing US assaults.

These demands have been present on the streets for months, with tens of thousands of workers regularly demonstrating support for Palestinian liberation and opposition to US imperialism and European rearmament. Contrary to claims of the “disappearance of workers,” widespread in liberal media and political establishments, it is the working class that has demonstrated how popular mobilization can effectively stand up to failed government policies. “Not only do workers exist, but they have also raised their heads and continue to fight,” added Marta Collot from Potere al Popolo. “This fall, we saw who truly drives the country forward and who has the ability and strength to bring it to a halt if they so choose.”

“Today we are back in the streets to make it clear, alongside USB and workers, that we must lay down arms and raise wages and reverse the priorities against these policies of war, genocide, and a war economy that the workers of this country are paying the price of.”