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Five hurt in Rome jobs protest clashes

Skirmishes broke out between Italian police and metal workers protesting job cuts in Rome on Wednesday, fuelling tensions between Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government and trade unions.

Five hurt in Rome jobs protest clashes
Terni steel workers and their families pictured earlier this year. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Several hundred people were protesting in front of the German embassy in Rome against cuts expected to hit over 530 employees at the Terni steel works, owned by German group ThyssenKrupp, when clashes broke out. Up to five demonstrators were lightly hurt, according to Italian media reports.

"The government should give answers not bludgeon workers," said Susanna Camusso, head of the CGIL, Italy's largest trade union.

"Half the country is going from bad to worse and if people protest they are charged at by the police," she said, adding that she would visit those hurt in hospital.

Her comments came after days of increasingly heated spats between the unions and the government over Renzi's plans to overhaul the job sector – in particular by make it easier for companies to fire workers.

The job market is a particularly sore topic in the eurozone's third largest economy, which is struggling to stave off its third recession in six years.

Youth unemployment stands at a record 44.2 percent and those who do manage to find work are often hired on temporary contracts which offer little in the way of security or benefits.

Renzi's measures were given the green light by the upper house of parliament after the prime minister turned the vote into a confidence vote on the government.

But they still need to be adopted by the lower house and a protest in Rome on Saturday to block the most controversial aspects of the reforms drew one million Italians from across the country, according to the organizers.

In a rare attack on a centre-left government – which is historically an ally of the unions – Camusso took to a podium in front of thousands in the Italian capital to denounce the plans and announce a general strike.

The 39-year-old premier hit back, saying "the era when a protest can block the government and the country is over."

And on Monday he launched another attack, saying it was "incredible that Camusso says we must negotiate. Yes, the unions must negotiate, but with businesses. Unions do not negotiate with the government, which has no obligation to ask for permission."

"Laws are not written by unions, but by parliament. If trade unionists want to negotiate, they should get themselves elected," Renzi said.

Watch a video of the protest:

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PROTESTS

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

The chairwoman of the Police Association West Region has said that police special tactics, known as Särskild polistaktik or SPT, should be available across Sweden, to use in demonstrations similar to those during the Easter weekend.

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police. 

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared. 

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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