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Workers strike for their safety in Italy amid coronavirus crisis

Thursday, 26 March 2020 2:03 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 26 March 2020 2:12 AM ]

Max Civili
Press TV, Rome

The Italian government's decision to further tighten its nationwide lockdown measures, shutting down almost all industrial production and offices in the attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak has caused uproar among workers and unions.

On Monday, the cabinet led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte issued a new decree to close down all non-essential production across the country. However according to Italy's thee major trade unions CGIL, CISL and UIL, the new measures are failing to protect a large number of workers still on the job from the north to the south of the country.

Authoritative Di Vittorio Foundation has estimated that about 12 million workers deemed essential in the decree are at high risk of being infected.

On the other side, entrepreneurs want their factories to stay open as much as possible. Italy's main organization of Industrial employers Confindustria has described the current situation as a wartime economy and warned over the risk of Italy losing 100 billion euros a month urging unions to show good sense and drop the fight.

According to the Italian media, the government and the unions have a good chance of finding an agreement on the matter in the coming days.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the number of covid-19 victims in Italy passed the 7,000 mark with the surge in the number of new cases of contagion falling for the fourth day running. The overall number of people to have contracted the coronavirus - including the deceased and people who have recovered - stands at over 74,000 nationwide so far. Of those, about 3,500 patients are in intensive care.

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