Since early April, immigrant workers in the Tuscan city of Prato have staged a wave of strikes demanding their right to a 40-hour work week, or “8x5.” Organized by the union SUDD Cobas, these walkouts, dubbed “Strike Days,” have directly involved 70 textile and garment factories in Europe’s biggest textile manufacturing hub. Highly successful, these simultaneous strikes have now won “8x5”—eight hour days, five days a week—in 68 fashion workshops and warehouses, all within th...| Labor Notes
Italy’s small textile firms have long been considered nearly impossible to organize. But a recent wave of successful simultaneous strikes is expanding possibilities for Italy’s hyperexploited immigrant workforce.| jacobin.com