Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Terza Giorno Dello Sciopero


Produce section at the COOP where we shop.
Today is Wednesday, the third day of the national strike of the autotrasportatori (truck drivers). This means that no products whose delivery depends on the truckers, including produce, dairy, meat, and gas, are being delivered anywhere in the country. The grocery store shelves are starting to thin out and the streets are gradually becoming more and more tranquil.

Running out of cheese!
What is the strike about? Money of course. The truckers are claiming that they need more money to combat the rising costs of diesel. Great. Newsflash - Italy is expensive and many workers in many job sectors are in desperate need of higher pay. Is the answer to effectively hold a key piece of national infrastructure hostage and drag the economy to a grinding halt? Now let me clearly state that I believe strongly in workers rights and protection, but to me this is borderline terrorism and should not be tolerated.

Here is an article (in English) about the happenings. Viva Italia!

2 comments:

Valerie said...

Interesting, because out here in the provinces we had no empty shelves and the gas stations were open for business pumping out petrol, too! We kept reading about shortages of produce and panettone but didn't see any evidence of it around here!

chris☆lewis said...

I read a post on another blog that said basically the same thing: that the strike didn't really affect normal life much (this from a blogger who also lives in a smaller, southern area). It seems that, naturally, only the places with much higher consumption suffered (like Florence and Rome as they require the constant influx of goods to keep life moving . Fortunately Erin and I weren't personally affected by it, as we don't need gas to get around and were lucky enough to stock up on food before it got too grazy :-).