War-Induced Inflation and PM Meloni Irritate Italian Workers

International Workers' Day on Monday was marked in Italy by the discontent of citizens against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the loss of purchasing power caused by the economic consequences of the Ukrainian war.

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The Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL), Italian Confederation of Workers' Unions (CISL) and the Italian Union of Labor (UIL) held their unitary demonstration in Potenza.

From this city in the Basilicata region,the three largest unions warned that the Meloni administration is not implementing policies in "the direction requested by the workers."

May Day is an especially revered day in Italy, a country that celebrates the 75th anniversary of its establishment as a "democratic republic founded on labor."

This happened after the end of WW2 and the defeat of fascism, an event that would have been impossible without the support of the resistance fueled by leftist workers and activists.

The tweet reads, "Meloni's May Day fiction that reduces the Ministers of the Republic to extra actors. Propaganda to the nth degree to sponsor a shameful labor decree. Increasingly precarious contracts and a reduction of two coins in taxes for the poor."

On Monday, however, Meloni decided to ignore the holiday and convened a Council of Ministers, which approved a decree modifying the tax burden until the end of the year.

Among other things, the new rule reduces the tax wedge, that is, the difference between the salary paid by an employer and the income received by the worker. The result of this is a net salary increase of about 100 euros for workers earning up to 35,000 euros per year.

"The tax wedge cut will give an extra 100 euros in payroll at a time when inflation is rampant. I don't understand who is arguing even about this," Meloni said last week.

However, precisely because of the confluence of high levels of inflation and a derisory net increase, the Italian workers consider that this decree is demagogic and useless.

The tweet reads, “'Today is the May Day, not the government's party. I claim the value of this day. The government must think of the worker every day of the year and not just on May 1,' Maurizio Landini at a rally in Potenza."

"Labor day is our day! We take to the streets of all of Italy to make the May Day a day of struggle for the workers' rights. Meanwhile, the Meloni administration approves a regulation decreeing the end of the rent basic and exalting the tax wedge reduction", Marta Collot, an Italian teacher, tweeted.

"A real alternative is not to reduce income taxes, something that even orthodox economists... have admitted that 90 percent of tax revenue goes into the pockets of the bosses."

"A real alternative is the fight against poverty, the proposal for a legal minimum wage of at least 10 euros per hour, the elimination of job insecurity, and the fight against workplace deaths," Collot said.

"May Day is our's day of struggle. No Council of Ministers can use it as a catwalk!," the Italian teacher stressed.