ONE-DAY GENBRAL STRIKE HITS ITALY
From midnight February 5 to midnight the following day, all of Italy was paralyzed by a general strike of government employees. The action, involving more than 1,200,000 persons, was the biggest of its kind in the history of the country. It affected primary and secondary schools, universities, railways, public administrations, government yards, the postal and telegraph system and even the courts,
The strike was called by the three big unions, the CGIL Commun -~ists and Socialists], the UIC [Social Democrats | and the CISL [Confed~ eration of Free and Christian Unions].
‘The action was taken to protest the inordinate delay in granting
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changes in administrative regulations promised by the government in 1962 which should have been carried out last June. Salary increases, made imperative by jumps in the cost of living, are involved, ,
Why the big delay in carrying out the promised changes? Spokes~ men of the Moro-Nenni government explain apologetically that the change is expensive -- some 450,000,000,000 lire [about $723,000,000] being involved, They want to spread it out over a three-year period, Government employees declare, however, that their pay is too short to stretch that far,
Reassuring statements about the situation were not slow in being broadcast, Correspondent Jean DtHospital, writing from Rome to the Paris Le Monde [February.7], said: "It involves a demonstration of discontent, and not, proper Ly speaking, a revolt, Passions are not overly wrought. Everyone knows here, the unions as well, that the State is not in position to respond at present to the wishes of its . personnel, no matter how legitimate they are," . -
Just the same, the authorities had better bestir themselves, Short pay checks are still short no matter how eloquently the govern~ ment shrugs and displays a pair of empty hands,
UMUMBA