Transportation strike hits commuters hard across Italy
(ANSA) – Rome, October 18 – Flights were cancelled at Rome’s main airport and trains and bus services were hit on Friday as a 24-transportation strike hobbled an already overtaxed city.
As many as 143 flights, including arrivals and departures, were cancelled at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport, as ground workers joined the general strike called to protest the government’s bill for the 2014 budget.
Bus and train services were provided during rush hours but for much of the day, traffic was clogged as workers were forced to drive cars or motorcycles to get to work because of reduced services.
Consumer group Codacons, however, dismissed the strike as a “failure”, saying that turnout by workers was very low.
Still, the strike hurt many Italians, it said, by “forcing thousands of commuters to travel by their own means”.
Militant grass-roots unions called COBAS marched against government policies while calling for greater job creation, drawing police out in force.
More than 4,000 officers were ready to squash attempted violence amid reports the hard-line unions have been infiltrated by anarchists and agents provocateurs. Similar traffic woes hit other Italian cities, including business capital Milan and Naples in the south.
In Naples, at least 10 flights were cancelled and others delayed while trains and buses were slowed.
The 24-hour strike that began at 21:00 local time on Thursday was set to be followed by further protests on Saturday as social action groups.
There were other fears that anarchist extremists would seize the opportunity provided by two days’ of protests to wreak havoc, and by mid-day Friday police had arrested five French activists accused of being members of the so-called Black Block.
The Black Block movement, a group of hooded militants, is accused of provoking unrest across other European nations in recent years. Two of the five detained in Rome are currently being investigated in France for acts of terrorism, while another two have already been flagged as past participants in protests against the TAV Lyon-Turin high-speed rail link.