Premier Matteo Renzi is not backed by honest Italians, Maurizio Landini, the leader of the leftwing FIOM metalworkers union, said on Friday. "Renzi recognises that he doesn't have the support of honest people, of workers and of those who are looking for work," Landini said at a rally in Naples. Landini has been leading protests against the government's Jobs Act labour reform and its 2015 budget bill, both of which unions consider to be recessive and excessively weighted in favor of business to the detriment of labor.
Landini went on to warn the premier - whose center-left Democratic Party (PD) has historic ties with labor and with FIOM's parent CGIL labor federation in particular - that he cannot revamp Italy all on his own. "Renzi cannot make decisions from morning until night. He cannot change the country on his own," Landini told a Naples rally accompanying a one-day strike his union has called in parts of Italy. "On his own he just responds to the powers that be". FIOM is part of Italy's biggest trade-union confederation, the CGIL, which has called a general strike to protest against the Jobs Act and the government's 2015 budget law on December 12 along with Italy's third-biggest union confederation, the UIL.
PD President Matteo Orfini rejoined that Landini had offended millions by saying Renzi was not backed by honest Italians. "By saying that the government doesn't have the support of honest people, he offended millions of workers who believe in the PD," Orfini said via Twitter. "I'm sorry that it came from a trade unionist".
Renzi's sanguine reply was that stoking controversy does not help Italy's jobs crisis. "You save jobs by keeping factories open, not by feeding controversy, and by solving the industrial crisis, not by playing at who can shout the loudest," Renzi said.
Giorgio Squinzi, the head of industrial employers confederation Confindustria, quipped he considered himself "very honest". "Personally, I consider myself very honest," Squinzi said.
"We believe that this country needs a new climate of industrial relations".
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