Santa Claus faces dismal days in Italy this year, thanks to the country`s 5 million bureaucrats who have decided to turn the season of goodwill into a month of discontent.
The old man with the white beard might not even make it to most homes, as trains and air traffic are to be sporadically paralyzed by wildcat walkouts to support demands for wage increases and new contracts.
But if Santa still manages to arrive with his old-fashioned sleigh and reindeer, his bag might be empty. Most banks have been on strike for the last week and intend to remain closed at least this week in a country where credit cards are still a novelty and citizens hoard their cash in savings accounts.
Even prospects for Christmas dinner look bleak. Turkey, goose and fish are off the menu because the state-employed veterinarians went on an indefinite strike this week. As all meat and fish have to be officially approved by them before sale, butchers say they will shut their shops as of Thursday because of the shortage of ”approved” merchandise.
The prospect of no meat or fish has prompted the government to threaten a mobilization of military veterinarians.
Pharmaceutical products, like those that alleviate indigestion, are sold now over the counter at inflated prices, without state subsidies. Many pharmacies have closed in protest over small profit margins.
Still, schoolchildren will have a wonderful pre-Christmas holiday. Primary and secondary teachers are on strike all this week and possibly next week, too. They are protesting against outmoded classrooms and bad equipment. The troubles have been christened Black December. They are expected to give Italians the worst Christmas in decades.
Labor leaders say the troubles are the direct result of months of infighting between the five-party coalition government under Socialist Premier Bettino Craxi. The controversial Craxi thought he had solved Italy`s chronic labor disputes and inflation when a referendum abolished the scala mobili, the indexed three-monthly pay raises adjusted to inflation.
While unions and employers quickly worked out a method to keep everyone content and at work with voluntary pay raises based on performance–a system that has worked surprisingly well–Italy`s bureaucrats and state-employed professionals feel their incomes have been rapidly eroded by the abolition of the wage index system and government apathy to their plight.
In a country where every fourth citizen is a public employee, they argue that inflation was brought down from 9 to 5 percent by taking money from their pay checks.
No one in Italy has any love for bureaucrats who are notorious for their inefficiency, impertinence and chronic absenteeism. But the servants of the state, virtually ”unsackable,” do run the country`s vital state-run enterprises. And they picked the Christmas period to voice their grievances.
For a start, the country`s 7,000 state-employed physicians decided on their own to charge, at least for the moment, the same fees as private practitioners. And to boost their claims for a 100 percent pay increase, they intend to boycott public hospitals as of Thursday.
Next, employees of state-backed banks decided last week on a series of wildcat strikes. It left clients to queue up for days in the vain hope the tills might open for a few minutes in a country where checks are accepted only if the client is known.
”Some of the clients really threatened to beat us up,” complained Aldo, a Banco Commerciale employee on Rome`s Via del Corso. He ignored the fact that most bank customers in Italy feel murderous urges any time they enter a bank where they are treated like beggars while demanding their own money back.
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On Tuesday Rome and Naples airports were closed except for one flight to Montreal and one to New York. Air controllers, demanding more money, have threatened to interrupt traffic.
And autonomous trade unions, breakaway groups from the three official trade federations, are sporadically paralyzing the state-owned train services. The malady is spreading. This week Foreign Ministry employees went on strike, leaving Italian diplomats without a home base.
The shopowners` association in Rome lamented it had lost $50 million last week in Christmas shopping because of the bank closures and millions of workers may not be paid the traditional Christmas bonus of an additional month`s salary.
If all this were not enough to make Christmas miserable, truck drivers who carry the bulk of Italy`s goods are going on strike for six days to protest the new speed limits on heavy trucks.
No doubt the jingle bells in Italy this year will have a woeful sound, and apart from the Pope, no one here is talking about the season of good will to all mankind.