Cobas TV
Through the arrests of Carlo and Arafat
they wanted to intimidate the union.
The opposite happened.
Away with the police chief of Piacenza!
Everybody - free! Arafat - free!
Carlo - free!
Today, we're here because before 8 March,
when we were here last time,
we were the only ones nation-wide
that went to Rome to discuss
that Draghi, the current prime minister,
doesn't represent us.
We're not in the same boat.
He's here to organize the more severe squeezing of workers
That we went Rome
to scream out our position
and on 8 March, when we went here to Amazon
to state that these workers have to organzie with us,
that sufficed for them to start this mechanism
by using our two weeks' strike at TNT.
It's no coincidence that the state prosecutor said:
"That's not how you do union work,
with strikes and pickets.
It's done as shown by CGIL, CISL and UIL!"
There's a prosecutor general that proclaims
which union he likes best!
It's obvious that he prefers these unions!
For these are the ones that even in these days,
yesterday evening, closed a deal
that disadvantages the workers!
They need these bought unions!
They don't need unions like ours!
Shame! Shame!
The best demonstration for this will be
today's nation-wide strike
and that, in the upcoming days,
we're going to force the employers
to bargain with us for the National Collective Agreement.
That's how it was in the last years and how it is today
when we have the strength to achieve better results!
Now it has come so far that the union umbrella organizations
and the employers meet
because they understood that we're hurting them.
Employers are being stopped by striking, blocking
and affecting their interests.
That's when they have to react.
We're going to demonstrate but also to strike
and cripple their entire activities
until we have our rights.
Long live the struggle, long live SI Cobas!
Arafat - free! Carlo - free!
Away with the police commissioner of Piacenza!
I want to state something very important:
Wo can write down 200 billion Euros?
I don't know with how many fucking zeros you write that.
But I can guarantee you that these numbers, 200 billion Euros,
is the amount that's being evaded in taxes each year!
With 200 billion Euros one wouldn't have to attend anything like this here.
If this money went back to the workers,
to the retirees, the poor, the homeless
we wouldn't have to be here today!
For the wages would be higher, the supply/coverage'd be better,
the pensions would be dignified, we wouldn't have to
claim our rights from those who strip them away from us!
I have to say something to the police:
Congratulations to the superior numbers you demonstrate here!
Know that no Red Brigades are present here,
no Armed Revolutionary Cells (NAR), no subversives,
here are workers, who could be at home now,
with their families.
Shame! Shame!
... and who frees them? The baton?
I'm done. I love you!
On March 26 at 5:50 pm we receive the message
that the house arrests have been lifted.
Carlo - free!
Arafat - free!
I'm sorry, I'm no prepared
to speak in front of so many people.
But today you show these people over there
what's the difference between being hated or loved!
The difference between doing evil to those
who defend the poor
and helping poor people.
I'm excited because the solidarity
during the two weeks of our house arrests
and now here has surpassed my boldest expectations.
We knew that we worked well,
that we won rights and dignity
for the people ...
Away with the police commissioner of Piacenza!
We knew ...
Away with the police chief of Piacenza!
It's stronger than them!
Away with the police commissioner of Piacenza!
Guys, we knew we worked well
and gave dignity and rights to
thousands of formerly exploited citizens of Piacenza.
But we couldn't see before, how big the heart,
the heart of the working class would be in these 15 days.
And not for the first time.
We all remember when in March 2020
the corona virus broke out.
Who were the only ones who reached deep into the pocket,
even when they had starvation wages,
and brought masks to the Red Cross?
Who were the only ones ...
SI Cobas, SI Cobas!
Who're the only ones? And I want to thank
the SI Cobas people as well as the people of the shopping groups
who I see here.
Support to the homes, for 400 families
with cancer patients, with people who're too poor
to leave their homes with the corona virus.
That's us! Neither those in uniform there nor the commune of Piacenza,
nor the police department.
The big heart of the working class turns the proletariat into the only
historic subject that's capable of
ending exploitation in capitalism.
The same capitalism that the institutions of Piacenza are serving,
for they don't serve the Italian state
but the multi- national colossuses
that are called Amazon, Fedex-TNT, GLS,
and all companies that we know of.
Otherwise it would be unexplainable why people are being arrested,
of all things the same people that freed thousands of workers
from exploitation and slavery
We also remind the people across.
At end of the month, at the turnstile, the mafia handed out 800 Euros in cash!
Now, with us, there are correct contracts!
Millions of Euros for the state ...
Back up a little bit, please
We don't want to provide pretext, more space please.
We have turned that world upside down.
But it's been said very clearly in the prosecutors files
that they are worried because approval for us is on the rise
and that's true. Approval for us is rising not only in logistics anymore!
The health workers with the scandalous contract
of the private clinics: those that are members of SI Cobas
couln't be vaccinated up until this day!
The institutions should go to these employers
to control why they won't let them be vaccinated.
After the lousy applause they let them stay at home,
the health workers.
Do you know what they want to sign?
This: Piacenza, tomato business, with many faces known all over town,
do you know how they earned their billions?
For decades, they paid the workers 4.60 Euros per hour!
And CISL and CGIL said this was correct!
Shame! Shame!
Then, we came and gave them, within a year,
the logistics contract that allows them to earn the double!
They want to stop this!
That we take care of workers not having to accept starvation wages
and being replaced by other starvelings at any given time.
They want to hold up that we give dignity to the workers,
amongst them many migrant workers.
Previously, you've chanted: Away with the Lega, away with the Fratelli d'Italia.
Correct, these are obscene, neo-fascist parties.
And do you know why they've attacked us?
Because many workers that graft and pay taxes in Piacenza
are immigrated workers.
These immigrated workers, all of you, are much more Piacenters
than those that conducted these repressions
or the ones from the Lega or the Fratelli d'Italia.
If they think they've scared us with these arrests
we have to thank them instead:
they've made us much stronger!