General strike, October 27, 2017
Si Cobas Rome
Strike, strike!
October 27: General strike!
Workers from SI Cobas from the whole of Italy participate.
Here in Rome, there are 4 assembly points in Fiano, Salone, Riano and Guidonia.
The strike has started at 6 a.m.
We blocked Bartolini
with support from TNT workers and the CEDOF.
At the same time, there was a rally in front of the GLS gates,
supported by GLS workers from Castel di Leva.
Afterwards, we all met in Salone
in front of the TNT gates.
What will we do? Stay at home or come back here?
Strike! Strike!
Then we demonstrated through the industrial zone in Salone
and in front of SDA.
That is a strike for everyone, also for those who are not on strike
and are fed up with working 10 or 12 hours per day
for 1,000 euros a month.
Strike today, strike tomorrow!
We are many!
After 10 years of struggle we cannot retreat now!
That is not possible! We are here!
They have taken parcels from SDA and gave it to the Postal Service.
Tomorrow they will say there are too many employees at the Postal Service.
who take parcels back to SDA.
The day after tomorrow, they will transfer the parcels from Garziano to Bologna.
Then they will give them to Rome and take them from Garziano.
We don't allow to be separated. Our struggle at SDA has shown
that we won't allow to be separated,
and today the workers have shown with their strike
that despite the attacks they suffered
and despite earning only half as much in this month of strikes
they have not given in.
If they are a pain in the ass again in November or in January,
we will be prepared because our rights are untouchable.
Today we demonstrate strength, not only as SI Cobas within GSL
but also as SI Cobas in Rome or as SI Cobas on the national level.
We also thank the squatters from the occupied houses
from Via Tiburtina 1099 and from Sambuci who came
to support the struggle at SDA and the general strike!
Let's thank them!
Workers came to the demonstration who had already demonstrated in Via di Salone.
As soon as we arrived in Rome, we were stopped by the police
who escorted us to the assemply point.
We were welcomed by the logistics workers, the public employees
and the transport workers who were already there.
We enjoy being side by side with the warehouse workers,
at the blockades of the big warehouses
together with those who occupied the empty houses.
Because there are people who have understood how to change things.
We can have a different discourse.
And this rally proves that.
This is a mixed rally. With many colors and languages.
With many different stories.
Also difficult ones.
With men and women who passed the desert and the sea
to get here, and who saw their companions die on the way.
Together with the other unions we have demanded
that this demonstration will pass by the ministry of economy to Porta Pia.
It was said that we cannot walk that way because there are squatters among us.
That would be strange people.
But for us these are our people. Here are many Italian workers
who lose their flat and have to squat
because you cannot pay the rents with those wages anymore.
That is a scandal. They don't even allow the people to walk on the sidewalk.
You don't understand what is going on.
They want to criminalize the movement for rights.
That's why they stopped us here.
In a moment where we are governed by a state of idiots
they let us walk away in groups of ten.
They try to separate us.
They have not understood that meanwhile the struggles are uniting.
The more they continue like that the more we get together.
Because the struggle for a flat, for work, concerns everyone:
squatters, non-squatters, people who face immediate evictions or were evicted.
We don't pretend doing anything,
so when we are going to the ministry of economy today and aren't now allowed to go further
we declare the demonstration finished here.
We are no criminals. Today we have taken the conflict to the companies,
onto the streets and in front of the squatted houses.
Now we dissolve the demonstration and go home.
Because we determine the location of conflict.