The leader of Italy's largest and
most left-wing union CGIL, Maurizio Landini, said Saturday that
struggling against injustice was key to freedom, speaking one
day after a general strike proclaimed by CGIL and UIL against
the 2025 budget bill.
Landini told a national congress of the Christian Associations
of Italian Workers (ACLI) that he had given as a gift to Premier
Giorgia Meloni a copy of Albert Camus's 'The Rebel: An Essay on
Man in Revolt' when they had met to discuss the budget bill
earlier this month.
"The sense of that book, which sparked an uproar, was to give
once again centrality to the freedom of people.
"If a person does not rebel against injustice, that person
doesn't exist because they are cancelled.
"That's what I think", said Landini, who told a rally in Bologna
on Friday, organized as part of the general strike, that
everyone must participate in the fight against injustice as the
country needs to be turned upside down.
"Today, democracy is not questioned by people demonstrating for
their rights but by those in Parliament who are trying to
approve a decree that calls for security but reduces people's
freedom and space", he said.
Addressing the demonstration in Bologna on Friday, which CGIL
said attracted some 50,000 protesters, Landini said that "social
revolt means saying that everyone of us must not turn the other
way in front of injustice, on the contrary, it is necessary to
promote the idea that we can change the situation only be
working together.
"Today begins a journey of mobilization to turn this country
upside down", he noted, saying the government wanted to question
the right to strike.
"Parliament is discussing a decree - which is called security
decree and we are asking for it to be withdrawn - that vies to
turn strikes, road blocks, squatting in factories when they
close into crimes", said the leader of CGIL, denouncing a
"serious attempt at an authoritarian turn that questions the
freedom to exist and people's freedom".
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