ROME, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The Italian government is using new legislation to target unions' ability to call for transport labor strikes, a union leader said Friday.
Italian General Confederation of Labor leader Guglielmo Epifani said the new bill headed to parliament following Cabinet approval will allegedly weaken workers' rights and unions' strike powers, the Financial Times reported.
The trade union official said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was allegedly "taking a path which is dangerous to democracy and freedom and may harm relations between companies and workers."
The new legislation proposes that in order to call a strike in Italy's transport industry, at least 50 percent of all relevant workers must support such a measure.
Highway blockades, such as those recently enacted by Italian workers, would also be outlawed under the legislation.
'They will prevent the right to strike being exercised in such a way that citizens are held hostage, as has happened so many times in recent years,'' Daniele Capezzone, a spokesman for Berlusconi's Forza Italia political party, told the Italian news agency ANSA.
