Pilots and flight attendants cheer offer withdrawal

           Six out of nine air transport unions nixed the offer so that Berlusconi's defeat (so far at least) in defending the italianità of the airline against a foreign buyer will stand as a total contrast to his success (again, at least for now) in the war against garbage in Naples.

        The fact is that an ideological war is being waged around the Alitalia question, one which concerns the long-standing, all-too-potent veto power of Italian unions and their ability to influence industrial policy to such a degree that foreign investment has become increasingly difficult to come by.

        Berlusconi and CAI, the new airline company formed by 18 investors (most of whom are probably counting on being able to sell their stakes down the road at great profit to a foreign airline) were hoping that the threat of a possible shutdown of the airline might be able to break the stronghold that the unions have had on Alitalia over the last dozen years, particularly the tiny independent pilots union, Anpac, and some of its close allies. Clearly, they have so far failed, partly because of the support the recalcitrant unions received from the CGIL, the leftmost and largest of Italy's four labor confederations, and partly because some of Berlusconi's left-of-center opponents have given at least tacit approval to union inflexibility.

        Berlusconi was returned to power by an electorate which is fed up precisely with things like excessive union power; anyone who has lived here for a while knows all too well about the inconvenience caused by frequent strikes by workers in all segments of the transport sector - planes, trains and local buses and subways - and would probably support him if he managed to "break" the unions. Indeed, public opinion has been overwhelmingly negative with regard to an extraordinary scene which saw protesting pilots and flight attendance breaking out into cheers when on Thursday afternoon it was announced that CAI had withdrawn its offer, at the moment at least the only thing keeping the 18,000 employees of Alitalia from losing their jobs.

        On the one hand, there is some sympathy for the pilots who are being asked to sacrifice a third of their number - 1000 out of 2500 - and to accept a unified contract with other categories, which would be unprecedented. On the other, the original CAI offer, now withdrawn, did include a government promise - also unprecedented - to ensure unemployment benefits for seven years to those laid off by Alitalia.