Strikes

There is SOO much to blog about and not enough time with unpacking and the baby and houseguests, I decided to start with one that is easier to write.  So the next several posts will be out of sequence but you get the picture!

I don’t think truly ever experienced a strike, except in bowling when I am trying desperately for the third strike to get a turkey!  Italians know how to strike.  But at least they are considerate enough to give you warning.  This week (23 January- 27 January) was the five day nationwide Trucker’s strike.  The truckers’ are striking because the new prime minister increased the tax on gas and diesel.  This can’t be good for business!  The truckers planned to block all the major Autostradas and especially block the toll booths.  Very wise play I think.  People avoid the strike areas and therefore the government does not get the L1-2 toll. 

When I first heard about the strike, from my favorite news source, Facebook, I didn’t think too much about it.  There was an airline strike the day we went to Venezia from 13:00-16:00 and it didn’t affect our 18:00 flight.  This strike was different.  Monday, when it started, Matt and I drove to the airport (where he works) and then I took the baby to the Support Site (SS-Little America) for her 4 month doctor’s appointment.  How did she become 4 months already!??!  Everything was normal.  After the doctor’s appointment and doing some other random errands in Little America, I drove back to the airport with no major issues.  After a quick lunch and updating Matt on the baby’s appointment, we got in the truck and headed home.  We were trying to get home in time to meet with our realtor and trusty handyman (I think he will make lots of appearances in future posts). So of course, we encounter the truckers’ strike.  At first, we thought it was just a traffic jam because “trucks” in Italy are anything bigger than a Mini Cooper.  They were pulled over in one of the lanes on the highway and all the drivers were out on the street.  The drivers were all talking on cell phones and carrying nice murses and wearing lots of fancy clothing. 

We spent about half an hour to get through a mile.  It could have been MUCH worse.  The polizia were on the scene at the beginning of each line of cars…I mean trucks.  They were standing around doing nothing but “keeping the peace.”  Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful at this particular moment.  Suddenly, in the other lane of the highway, there was a bunch of commotion, truckers screaming and looking to the polizia for assistance, and then a truck zoomed off.  The truckers continued to scream and then three of them ran off to a car, actually a car, and took off after the rogue van.  Now I of course was looking the other way trying to take pictures with my phone in the moving car and only saw the “breaker” but Matt saw it all.  The “strike breaker” had a wrench throw at him and in response he ALMOST ran down of the truckers.  The trucker jumped out of the way at the very last second.  And the polizia did nothing.

The strike went on for the rest of the week.  Because of the strike, our wardrobes and freezer were not delivered on Tuesday (they came in a truck).  By Friday, it had pretty much died down in Napoli but the rest of the Italia was going strong.  Because of the strike gas stations ran out of gas and lots of the grocery stores ran out of supplies.  Luckily, Matt kept the truck full and we had gone to the grocery store on Monday!

I lived through the first of many strikes.

Gas station attendants strike coming in February.  This one could get ugly.