Solidarity with Italian women and public workers

PSI sends a solidarity message to Italian trade unions as they prepare take to the streets on 9 December in a general strike, not to defend privileges, but to demand their fundamental rights and the necessary investments to ensure the continuity of life in our cities.

It is simply incredible that, after having called them heroes, after having counted by the thousands the workers who do their work in the service of the community have been infected by COVID 19 and the many who have died, the workers and public workers must take to the streets with a general strike, not to defend privileges, but to demand their fundamental rights and the necessary investments to ensure the continuity of life in our cities.

The COVID 19 pandemic has made clear the importance of public services, to save people's lives, to guarantee their safety and that of our communities, to give relief to the paralysed economy. It has been said "never again return to the past", yet, in the face of the facts, we still need to fight to have our rights recognised.

But what is at stake today is the idea of developing the future for the whole country, the role the public wants to play in redefining recovery from the pandemic and the priorities on which to invest. And we must say loud and clear that without investing in public work, innovation, quality, support for the economy will not be possible.

This time it cannot be the workers who are still paying for the global crisis. In the report "State of Tax Justice 2020" that PSI has edited with the Tax Justice Network and Global Alliance for Tax Justice, the world loses every year 360 billion Euros just because of tax avoidance by multinationals and super-rich people.

For Italy, this loss is equivalent to 18.7% of total annual health care expenditure, or the equivalent of the annual salary of 841,000 public workers.

If this is so, delays, postponements, lack of courageous decisions are not justifiable, they are a lack of political will.