A strike by subway and bus staff
snarled traffic and disrupted business in Rome Friday, sparking
protests by hundreds of irate passengers who refused to leave a
train when the driver walked off the job, witnesses said.
City authorities removed the electronic gate banning traffic
to the centre to allow workers to use their cars to reach
workplaces but thousands of people found themselves stranded in
buses and underground trains that ground to a halt at the climax
of stoppage, which called by labour unions to protest new rules
against staff absenteeism imposed by the ATAC transport company.
Private security guards and police had to intervene to
restore order when hundreds of passengers refused to get out of
carriages in one train that stopped at the Arco da Travertino
metro station.
Station loudspeakers urged passengers to leave the train and
evacuate the station while videos placed on line by the Codacons
consumer protection pressure group showed hundreds of commuters
waiting in front of trains in stations with doors closed.
Passengers also openly cursed drivers in the few buses that
remained in service.
"We are like sardines, except that the fish are wider,"
quipped one commuter in a Codacons video.
Two station agents were taken to hospital as a result of
being "assaulted and beaten by passengers" in clashes in the
Arco di Travertino and Re di Roma stations on the A line, said
Gianluca Donati, secretary of mobility for the Rome and Lazio
transport division of labor union CISL.
Donati pointed the finger at "bad management" by ATAC as
the reason for the chaos.
"They (ATAC) ordered the evacuation of the trains to close
the line (at 8:30 am). Management should have ordered the driver
to finish the route. The drivers act upon orders given to them
by the control center," Donati said.
Consumer protection group Adoc called for the Italian
Transport Authority to intervene in what it called "the
umpteenth black Friday for mobility for Romans, the umpteenth
time for scenes of panic, chaos and disorder in the metro A and
C stations and on buses in outlying areas of the city".
Adoc President Lamberto Santini called Friday's protest to
the strikes "proof of the failure of the Roman public transport
system", and the group called on the Transport Authority to
provide an "immediate plan for renovation of the capital's
public transport system".
Valentina Iori, secretary of the bus and tram workers' union
Ugl for Rome-Lazio said "there is widespread and general
discontent with ATAC management," claiming that the strike call
was widely supported throughout the capital.
Among the main causes of the strike was clauses of a
contract signed June 27 that means workers' pay would be
deducted for absenteeism including for sickness, parental leave,
sick children and blood donations -- a measure that so far has
been applied only to clerks and ticket controllers but is due to
be extended to drivers, guards and other workers, Iori said.
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