Premier Matteo Renzi is not
backed by honest Italians, Maurizio Landini, the leader of the
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, who has been leading protests against the
government's Jobs Act labour reform, said at a rally in Naples.
The FIOM is part of Italy's biggest trade-union
confederation, the CGIL, which has called a general strike to
protest the Jobs Act and the government's 2015 budget law on
December 12 along with another big union, the UIL.
"You save jobs by keeping factories open, not by feeding
controversy, and by solving the industrial crisis, not by
playing 'who can shout loudest'," Renzi replied.
Landini's comments immediately also drew an indignant
reaction from several others.
"Personally, I consider myself very honest," said Giorgio
Squinzi, the head of industrial employers confederation
Confindustria.
"We believe that this country needs a new climate of
industrial relations".
Matteo Orfini, the president of Renzi's centre-left
Democratic Party (PD), said Landini had offended millions.
"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".
Landini tried to backpedal later on Friday, saying his
comments had been misinterpreted.
"I never thought that Renzi doesn't have the support of
honest people, as I have been attributed as saying by some media
organs," Landini said.
"I said, and I reiterate, that the premier does not have
the support of the majority of people who work and the people
who are looking for work and they are on the honest, tax-paying
side of the country".
Before the row broke out, Landini warned Renzi that he
could not revamp Italy all on his own.
"Renzi cannot make decisions from morning until night. He
cannot change the country on his own," Landini told the 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".
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