Textile workers go on strike

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On 8 March 2005 the workers of the Italian textile sector hold a strike to ask for the support of the so-called made in Italy sector which has been in crisis for three years. Introduction of a compulsory label and fight against counterfeited products are the main request behind the strike.

The Italian fashion system, which comprises garment, shoe and leather companies as well as toy producers, is one of the leading sectors of the Italian economy and of many Italian regions. The sector is mainly made up of small and medium seized companies (95.5% has an annual turnover lower than EUR 2 million), it employs about 711,000 dependent workers and 184,000 self-employed workers.

The sector has been undergoing a severe crisis for at least three years. Many companies had to shut down, and are still shutting down, due to this crisis with the consequent loss of jobs (about 250,000 jobs between 1992 and 2003). Only in the Apulia region, these last four years, there was a loss of 4,000 jobs, 120 companies shut down their businesses and 4,300 have been placed on a mobility scheme.

The fashion sector is a sector which mainly employs women thus, the crisis, risks becoming the cause of severe social problems which go behind the loss of the job.

The trade unions affiliated to the main three trade union confederations Filta-Cgil, Femca-Cisl and Uilta-Uil launched a warning and organised a national four-hour strike (eight in some industrial districts) on 8 March 2005 to ask to the government to issue urgent measures to safeguard and sustain the Italian fashion system and the whole textile sector.

The main requests of the trade unions are: the compulsory introduction of a Made in Italy label describing the origin of the product; strengthening the fight against counterfeited products and sharpening of the sanctions for those who purchase and sale counterfeited products, the fight against illegal importations. The trade union organisations are also asking for a new sectoral industrial policy, incentives for training and vocational re-qualification, reduction of labour taxes, reform of the social-shock absorbers to support workers’ income, strengthening of the joint system of social shock absorbers to support the workers of the artisan sector, extension of the wage-guarantee fund from 52 to 104 weeks.

According to the organisers the strike recorded a very high level of participation. About 85-90% workers took part in the strike all over Italy witnessing workers’ support to the initiatives launched by the men and women workers.

The trade union are insistently asking for a meeting with the government and with the employers’ association, for a new economic policy, and for new measures to protect Italian producers against unfair competition and in particular against Chinese competition. To this regard the three trade confederations consider the possible introduction of antidumping fees inappropriate and counterproductive

Guglielmo Epifani, secretary general of the Cgil, who took the floor in the manifestation of Biella, underlined that 'the textile sector cyclically suffers from difficult periods but the current crisis is very peculiar and more difficult than the previous ones when the sector used to loose employment but increased the value of products. Now, also production is decreasing in value and, in order to re-launch the textile sector we do not need makeshift answers but concrete actions focused in research, innovation and the improvement of the social shock absorbers.'

Savino Pezzotta, leader of the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacato Lavoratori, Cisl), agrees on the fact that the introduction of the antidumping fees is an acceptable solution: 'it is not possible to cover insufficiencies with barriers', and asks for more efficient industrial policies.

According to Luigi Angeletti , secretary general of the Union of general Labour (Unione Generale del Lavoro, Uil) one of the possible alternatives to the introduction of the fees 'would be a strong commitment in the application of the current European regulations and stricter controls on the quantity and quality of imported goods'.

The day after the strike the vice-minister of the productive activities, Adolfo Urso, underlined the measures regarding the fight against counterfeited products contained in the Action Plan on the country’s competitiveness recently approved by the Government (IT0503104F) and committed himself into calling a table on the textile sector before the end of the month. Mr Urso also underlined that, at European level 'the government will ask for the necessary measures aimed at safeguarding the textile sector, such the antidumping fees, as provided for the Wto, in order to protect workers and companies form unfair competition'.

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