Far right drive to privatise galvanises public sector

Hundreds of thousands of workers across Italy went on strike and marched on 11th December against reforms designed to set up huge swathes of the public sector for cuts and sell-offs.

Despite opposition against demonstrations from several major unions, protests were held in Rome, Milan and Naples in a nationwide series of marches which organisers said attracted up to 180,000 school staff, students and parents.

Police declined to give a number for the overall attendance at the marches, which were held despite attempts to ban the unofficial events and amid a barrage of criticism from press sources loyal to President Silvio Berlusconi. Union officials said that around 60% of public sector workers stayed out on strike during the day, though the government disputed this figure.

Anger has been building at proposed cuts and pay freezes from the government which workers say tears up promises made by the state that creeping casualisation in the sector would end, instead using the financial crisis as an excuse to push through further attacks on working conditions.

The dispute follows widespread concern over the government’s recent Brunetta decree, which has been touted in the press as a set of reforms aimed at improving performance in education, but is seen by many as a process designed to make it more appetising for a future privatisation.

The decree calls for the imposition of private sector values on education, and proposes a similar system to the league tables and testing which has led to privatisa­tion of ‘failing’ schools in the UK, allowing for the suing of schools considered to be below standard.
Hidden in language about parents’ rights is also talk of ‘streamlining’ education, hinting at a major swathe of cuts and decommission­ing of secular schools across the country. Union sources have warned of “a regressive and classist plan to privatise education”. A member of the CGIL union, which helped organise the strike, told the left wing Il Manifesto newpaper: “When you commodify knowledge you can include only a part – you determine a society without mobility, for the few, where the education of those most vulnerable will always be worse.”
As the debate hots up in the wake of major scandals surrounding the ruling coalition, student groups are calling for schools to be opened to community control, effectively to become self-managed.

Student groups marching in the demonstra­tions marched behind banners calling for ‘the end of indiscriminate cuts and reforms’.
The government has already come under fire in the last month for its attempts to finalise the sell-off of Italy’s water utilities to the private sector in a new law approved by the House on 20th November.
Anarchist newspaper Umanita Nova has warned that the bill will effectively gives the state carte blanche to sell off public utilities of all stripes, fitting in with EU law promoting the promotion of private firms in all spheres of public service.