The rain does not stop the trade unions public work. FP Cgil, Uil Fpl and Uil Pa took to Piazza del Popolo in Rome to demand the renewal of national contracts for all public service workers, asking for more resources, primarily for healthcare, in order to guarantee universal and free care .
“Today is important because for the second consecutive day workers are filling Piazza del Popolo. Work and the person must return to the center of politics, because the wealth of a country is produced by the people who work, not by finance”.
This is how the secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini opens his speech in the demonstration jointly called by the public unions of CGIL and UIL, to demand the renewal of the collective labor agreements and ask, at the same time, for greater resources for national contracts and, above all, for public health.
Landini’s main target is, obviously, the government: “When wages and employment are cut, when precariousness is encouraged, democracy and the freedom of the citizens of our country are being reduced. And that’s what’s happening. We are no longer willing to accept this trend.”
But the tones of the number one of the CGIL become even harsher when he turns to Minister Giorgetti, commenting on his budget maneuver and the lack of taxation for the banks: “When I heard the Minister of Economy who on behalf of the government said that in the budget law the big news will be that the banks will make the sacrifices and not the people, I asked myself if he were sober. I would really like to understand what the sacrifice required of the banks would be. From what we have all read – underlines Landini – there is no additional taxation either for banking institutions or for those who have increased profits”.
The secretary of the CGIL he then also sends a message to the CEO of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, who in recent days stated that he sees too much ‘anger and envy’: “We are not envy, ours is not envy, but social justice, dignity, freedom of people,” he states Landini.
While the secretary of Uil Pierpaolo Bombardieri he points his finger mainly at cuts to healthcare: “I invite our politicians to pay a visit to the hospitals, where there have been continuous cuts in the public sector for twenty years. We, as we have always done, ask for even more investments.” And he observes: “There are those who say that healthcare resources have increased. But the matter is different: it is logical, in fact, that if you increase investments, but in the meantime energy costs and those of services increase, the services themselves decrease. It’s reasoning that even an elementary school child would understand.”
Bombardieri then harangues the crowd, also focusing, like Landini, on the topic of banks: “It is intolerable that this government treats banks and public sector workers in the same way.”
Finally, he concludes, announcing that there will be no step backwards on the part of the UIL: “We will continue our fight for public service, to give this country resources for wages, taxes and pensions. All issues on which we will continue to fight to continue to represent those who suffer.”