 For more videos and people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On March 22nd, that was Monday, workers of Amazon and Italy staged a strike and it was a historic strike because the union, it was not only the employees of Amazon but also delivery workers, the drivers who were actually employed by third parties who took part in the strike and there's been, this is a culmination of months of negotiations between the union and Amazon and the employers. Among the key demands is the fact that Amazon, the workers do want better working conditions, some of them delivering a crazy number of parcels a day up to 200 even. So to talk about this, we have with us Juliano Granato, thank you so much Juliano for joining us. So first of all, I just want to ask you about the strike itself, could you maybe talk a bit about how, you know, what was the kind of mobilizations that took place, if any, the organizing around it, how people responded because one thing we do know from media reports is that Amazon has, Amazon's business increased massively in the last year with the pandemic. There are numbers which say around there was a 30% increase in just one year alone and at the same time, the workers can continue to be really struggled. So could you maybe talk a bit about what's happening or what happened in the ground? Yeah, of course. Thank you to you. And yeah, on 22nd of March, it was a very important day of struggle and not just for Amazon but I think for all the workers here in Italy. Amazon here in Italy employs roughly 40,000 people, 20,000 are employed directly by Amazon and other 20,000 are drivers employed by third party as you were telling us before. And the importance of this struggle is that for the first time in the history, not just in Italy but all over the world, there was a strike of all these different workers. And obviously, the action, it was quite different from a place to another place. For example, in the north of Italy, where the structure of Amazon first arrived a few years ago, the struggle was more impactating. It was very effective, I would say. Here in the south, there are less centers, less Amazon centers and the workers had many, many troubles in striking. For example, just to let you understand here, where I live in Navel in the south of Italy, there was a strike in Arzano that is an industrial center close to the city but apparently no one striped it. No workers striped it. It was not so strange if you think that Amazon is very, is able to control the workforce and to eliminate the struggle of the trade unions. So it depends where you look at the situation. In the north, the struggle was effective. If you think that in 2020, Amazon grew a lot in Italy too. They hired 2,600 people and in other parts of the world, there was a growth in the activities of Amazon. But for the workers, the situation is still very, very difficult. The struggle is basically a new contract, a new national contract. And the important things that workers are not struggling, they first struggle is not for their wages because relating to other wages in this country in Italy, they are quite well paid. The reason they were struggling and they were striking was that they are protesting for workloads or work conditions because they are very hard conditions. As in the United States and in the UK, they cannot pay during their work days. So these are the main reasons and the other important reason was for a political recognition for the trade unions because Amazon all over the world has the same behavior related to the trade unions. They hate trade unions, Amazon hates trade unions and they do whatever they can to eliminate trade unions from their workplaces. It means that in many workplaces, people hire just for a few months, two or three months because the algorithms on the management of Amazon, after three months, workers are not productive anymore. But apart from economically productivity, there is another reason that is a political reason. They don't want to give time to workers to get organized by other people by trade unions. So the struggle was for living conditions, working conditions, but also for political reasons because trade unions need to struggle to enter Amazon workplaces, Amazon warehouses, but also drivers' companies that are mainly small and medium companies employed by Amazon. They have no power because Amazon has the real power, but drivers have to struggle together with Amazon warehouse workers. And on the 22nd of March, there was the first important day of struggle all over the Italy. Absolutely. Julian, in this context, I wanted to ask you about the aspect you were referring to towards the end also, which is the challenges faced by trade unions in organizing workers. And we know that this is of course a global phenomenon. And we also know that this is of course not just with Amazon, but especially with all platform companies in what is called the gig economy these days, food delivery workers, other service workers. So could you maybe take us also through what is the kind of mobilizing that in Italy that has been taking place in these sectors because there are a huge number of people employed. Their services have become all the more important last year over the pandemic. They've almost in some ways been at the front lines, so to speak. So could you maybe also tell us what they're going through and what is the kind of organizing take place out? Yeah, in 2020 there was a huge increase in workers employed by these companies in the gig economy. For example, in Lombardy in the north of Italy, the richest region in Italy, there was a judge a few weeks ago that had his sentence and he compelled the gig economy companies to hire 60,000 people that were not employed, but they were contracted by these companies as autonomous workers. The judge sentenced that they are not autonomous workers. They are employed by these companies. They have the right to a proper contract and to proper working conditions. Thousands of riders right now and they are struggling from years. In the last months they had also important victories, but there are many problems we obviously in organizing with this kind of work because of the contracts, because of the working conditions are always telling you before. But apart from the difficulties, I think the most important thing is that for years, academics, researchers, trade unions too, were telling us that with post capitalist economies, there was no space for organizing. There was no space for trade unions and for political parties organizing these kind of workers. Ports. These struggles in the last months are showing us that the conflict in a capitalist world is unsurprimable and the struggles follow the capital. Obviously, workers have a lot of problems, a lot of troubles in finding new ways to organize themselves, but finally they find a proper way. On last Friday, there was a strike of riders in different cities and they were protesting all over the main cities in Italy with their bikes, with their motor bikes, and it was quite effective. And also, if you look at the Liverpool, for example, one of the main of this big company, yesterday, they had their own quotation at London Stock Exchange Market. It was a failure. If you look at the the the aspect of the company, they started with an idea, okay, we will sell our shares at a price between 3.9 pounds to 4.6 pounds. Then later, they changed their mind and they said, okay, it's too high, we can we have to lower the price. So it will be between 3.9 and 4.1. Finally, they lower again and the final price was the effective price was 3.9 pounds for sure. But at the end of the day, they had the fall of 26 percent that there was a big, big failure. And the main reason is that the Liverpool is saying it is going to be put in a blacklist because of the misbehavior, the bad behavior related to their own employees, because they don't treat well their own employees. And it's due to the workers' struggles in the last month, because thousands and thousands of riders were able to put working conditions, big economy at the main in the political agenda of different countries. So they were able to put their own conditions in the agenda of the government. Obviously, governments are not acting in favor of these workers, but many people are now conscious of these difficult working conditions of thousands and thousands of workers. So I think that this piece, this part of working class is going to have a centrality. If you look at the symbol of the struggle, they are a kind of vanguard, not also because they are able to block the economy, the circulation of the capital. Obviously riders in the cities, but logistics workers here in Italy, 10 years, the struggles are going on from 10 years on, and they won a lot of things in terms of wages, in terms of working conditions, and they were able to disrupt the circulation of capital. So now they are on the front of the working class struggle, and they are a symbol of the working class struggle, and I think that around these kind of workers, we can join and we can unite different categories, and we can see a new face of the work of the class struggle. Whoever in the past years told us that class struggle as that was wrong, definitely was wrong, and the struggle of last week's are demonstrating us that they were definitely wrong. Absolutely, and also, Julian also wanted to ask you a bit about what the approach of the government has been. We know that Italy has been going through a considerable political crisis over the past few years, governments coming and going, alliances which are almost unnatural if you look at the ideological nature of the parties taking place, and the continuance of a technocratic form of government, so to speak. So in this context, has any of these governments, either at the national or regional level, addressed the demands of, say, gig economy workers or reached out or even listened to what they have to say, or are there any kind of model policies that have emerged or demands that have emerged in that context? Yeah, well the new government, Draghi government, Draghi was the chief for the European Central Bank, it's a technocratic government, and this government unites all kind of parties, apart from the fascists of Fratelli d'Italia, brothers of Italy, all the other parties in the parliament are joined in this new government, and now we are waiting for the first measures, because there will be probably a change with respect to the 2011 technocratic government that was the year of the austerity measures, it was a different phase, not just in Italy, also all over Europe, now they have money to spend because the struggles, they fear the struggles, even if we have not so high level of struggles here in Europe, but they fear the possibility, the chance that in the future there could be very important struggles. So Draghi government, for now, is going to act in order to spend money also for the workers, mainly for the companies, for the main company, but also for the workers for lower classes, but I think the project of this government is focusing again on the capital in the north of Italy, not because there is a struggle between the south and the north of the geographic struggle, but because in the north of Italy there are the main industries, Fiat was there and the main companies, all of them are in the north of Italy, so this government has a project, this government has to give money and give power to these companies in order to let them still be united with the international chain of production that links especially northern Italy with Germany, the south in this context that is the most the most poor region, the poorest region in the country is marginalized and we as subaltern classes have to think not just about resistance to this project, but also to a new project for the subaltern classes, for the lower classes in order not just to resist the attack of the government and the enterprises of the companies, but also to imagine a new future and a transition to a new system that we still call socialism. Thank you so much Juliana for talking to us. Thanks to you. That's all we have time for today keep watching people's support.