Apple, arriva il nuovo smartphone e i lavoratori italiani scioperano

Apple unveiled its latest iPhone model in Italian stores, sparking protests from workers who announced a nationwide strike. Filcams CGIL, Fisascat CISL, and Uiltucs have called for a national strike at 17 Apple Retail stores, including the Piazza Liberty location in Milan and via del Corso in Rome, with 1,600 employees involved.

The workers plan to strike on September 18th, the day the new iPhone arrives in Italian stores, to push for negotiations on hiring, workload, and contracts for temporary employees. The unions presented their concerns at a meeting on September 7th, stating that the situation involves increasing workloads, insufficient staffing, and mounting pressure on productivity due to new organizational processes. Workers have been enduring excessive pressure for some time, which cannot be further intensified.

The unions have proposed several measures to address the organizational challenges but have not received structural responses. For months, they have been demanding a shared plan for hiring, stabilizing fixed-term contracts, and increasing voluntary part-time hours based on individual store needs with guaranteed time frames. The company has shown no willingness to address these proposals, despite announcing an increase in fixed-term contracts and anticipations of corresponding hires.

For the unions, this solution fails to tackle the structural nature of the problem, as fixed-term work periods are already nearing seven months. The launch of the new iPhone generation marks a new phase of intense activity, including for Italian stores, prompting the Italian unions to believe that the multinational must urgently address organizational issues and ensure sustainable working conditions.