Alitalia wildcat strike grounds 114 flights - Italy

[Bilan]

A wildcat strike by Alitalia workers Thursday forced the Italian flagship airline to cancel 114 flights.



Part of the airline's ground personnel held a general assembly at Rome's Fiumicino airport for several hours early Thursday. The action by workers fearful of losing their jobs when Alitalia is relaunched as a private airline next week caused the cancellation of 63 departing flights and 51 Rome-bound flights.
Several hundred passengers were affected by the action, which could resume in the afternoon, the report said.
Alitalia was saved from the brink of bankruptcy by an all-Italian investor group, the Italian Air Company (CAI). After months of tense negotiations with the unions, CAI finalised a takeover plan involving 3,250 job losses in mid-December.
The deal to acquire Alitalia's passenger operations for 1.052 billion euros (1.43 billion dollars) involves merging the airline with domestic rival Air One. The new Alitalia will operate 670 flights a day, compared with 1,050 previously.


(http://libcom.org/news/alitalia-wildcat-cancels-114-flights-08012009)
source. (http://libcom.org/news/alitalia-wildcat-cancels-114-flights-08012009)

[PoWR]

Interesting to note the mainstream media has been reporting this incident as a "protest" not a wildcat.

Here's coverage from Revolutionary Perspective:

Wildcat strike in Italy causes 100+ flights to be canceled

ROME, January 10—More than 100 flights were canceled at the Leonardo Di Vinci airport on Thursday, as a result of a wildcat strike against job cuts.

The Alitalia company, which earlier went bankrupt, is scheduled to relaunch next week. The company’s profitable assets were merged with the smaller Air One, and a foreign partner (which looks to be Air France) is set to come on board.

But the “new” Alitalia hasn’t offered any jobs to many of the employees of the “old” Alitalia. The “new” Alitalia will employee 7,500 less people than the “old” Alitalia. While some of those losing their jobs have been given government guarantees of unemployment payments for a set time, many others are set to receive absolutely nothing. It was because of this that over 400 baggage handlers, check in personnel and other ground workers held a strike, bringing air traffic to a hault.

[Bilan]

The Italian air-industry has been shaken heavily in recent months with wildcat strikes and organised strikes. No doubt they are trying to down-play the seriousness of this event.

[PoWR]

Of course. Events like this always get swept under the rug. I was speaking to a fellow worker days into the Chicago window factory occupation a few weeks back who hadn't heard a single word about it even though he was a regular news viewer.