Italian Arts Workers Announce Nationwide Strike
Italian labor unions, cultural workers’ associations, and grassroots collectives have called for a nationwide strike across Italy’s arts and culture sector on Friday, June 12, citing low wages, unstable work, and solidarity with Palestine. The action follows a May 8 strike at the Venice Biennale led by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), which organizers say shut down nearly 30 national pavilions and included a march opposing Israel’s pavilion in the Arsenale Complex. Groups backing the June 12 strike include ANGA, Mi Riconosci?, Art Workers Italy, the Italian Association of Museum Educators, Sale Docks, and Biennalocene, and they say the mobilization extends to roles from editorial and entertainment workers to educators and museum maintenance staff. Under the slogan “Vogliamo Tutt'altro” (“We want something else”), demands include stable and properly compensated cultural labor, safety mandates, universal welfare benefits for health and pensions, and protections for workers’ freedom to dissent against the “war economy.”
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Reopenings, Strikes, and Art’s Political Crossfire