Bill 1660, which the Italian parliament intends to pass, is a terrifying step towards a police state that seeks to criminalise all protest as well as political, trade union and social dissidence.

The new law opens the door widely to police repression and leaves the working class without any protection and defence. The aim of the far-right president Giorgia Meloni, who has a very good relationship with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is clear and she is attacking all dissidence with all the force at her disposal.

We know very well the consequences of similar policies and for that were created the gag law and other legal norms with the aim of criminalising social protest. As we recently denounced from the World Federation of Trade Unions‘ Peoples’ Coordinating Committee, four people from Zaragoza are in prison for a peaceful protest against the far-right party Vox, 6 workers from La Suiza in Gijón are at risk of imprisonment for trade union activity in protest against the harassment at work against a worker and five activists from the SAT Union in Andalusia are at risk of going to prison for their trade union activity. In the Basque Country we had also numerous cases of repression against trade union action in the past.

LAB sends to the comrades of the Unione Sindacale di Base from Italy its full solidarity and support facing the struggle they are carrying out to confront this serious attack. The struggle against social and trade union repression is global and affects class unionism all over the world. What is happening in Italy is not an isolated case and, as it is a global phenomenon, we must face it together and in unity, because capital and the institutions at its service want to put an end to the counter-power that we trade unions exercise.

In this sense, as it has always demonstrated throughout its 79 years of history, the World Federation of Trade Unions and its member unions are and will be in the front line of the struggle to fight injustice and create alternatives based on class solidarity. Only the people can save the people, but it is also in our hands to build alternatives and social, trade union and political majorities to make policies in favour of both the working class and the popular sectors. That is why the militants of the Italian USB will always have the support of LAB to carry out political and social changes.