First words: sciopero

There's another transport strike today.  It doesn't bother me.  Besides they are striking at such an odd time from eight thirty pm to half past midnight. Most people will be home by then. A lot will be in front of their TVs as Italy plays Belgium tonight in the European Championship. 

 My students find it hard to believe that one of the first Italian words I learnt was 'sciopero'. It means strike.

I can still remember the day, back in 1998, I'd been in Italy a couple of weeks and was doing a teacher training course. I was sharing an apartment off the Via Tuscolana in an area called Ponte Lungo. It was convenient, well-served by both buses and underground, with direct access to the city centre.

The flat was functional, apart for the broken washing machine, and had a handily placed small (couldn't swing a cat, as the expression goes) grocery store at its foot where we (flatmate and I) could buy staples such as pasta, tomato sauce and huge bottles of cheap Frascati wine. What more could we want? Well, large balls of milky mozzarella. It had those too.

In the mornings, we'd sip our coffees on the tiny balcony that overlooked a vast bus depot, we ignored the clouds of diesel that puffed out of its open windows or the sighing hydraulics of the buses resting between shifts, and thought of the day ahead. 

Coffee over, we sauntered up to the metro station and halted as we faced a padlocked metal gate. Slightly askewer affixed to it was a sign "Sciopero." Followed by numbers, the strike schedule: "Dalle 8.30 alle 17.00. Dalle 20.00 a fine servizio (end of service)." And then letters, abbreviations, which affirmed which trade unions were participating in the strike action, not that we undersood them then.

What the......?

We regarded the sign. The metro was obviously non-functioning. I wondered how the word was pronounced: was it 'chi' sound or an 'sss' sound or was it hard like a 'k'? My flatmate pulled out her map and considered how we would reach our destination. The school was only two stops up the line at Manzoni, and as we discovered to our surprise, a bare twenty minutes rapid walking away. Metro stops are very close together, bus stops even closer. Romans don't like to walk.

It was to be the first of many. Strikes are called monthly and tend to fall either on a Monday or a Friday.

Hence accusations from irate commuters that the bus and metro drivers are giving themselves a long weekend. This overlooks the fact that many public transport workers have weekend shifts. 

According to Italian law even during a strike there must be a guaranteed minimal service (about 30% of the regular service). So if you wait long enough a bus will come along, usually packed to the rafters full of angry passengers. 

Nowadays, I check out which trade union is striking. CGIL and ATAC are bad news as they close down the underground, others such as CoBAS may only lead to a slow down which commuters rarely notice. Regular service itself is fairly unreliable, timetables are rarely respected, long waits are the norm.

 Then I plan my trip into work. This usually involves a lot of walking, so I put on some comfy shoes or trainers, alongside the busy Via Tuscolana. In a couple of cases I've walked the full ten kilometres across the Caffarella park to Largo Colli Albani and onwards. More often I try and catch a passing bus along the way, provided it's not too full. 

Taxis on strike days are difficult to get, as the operators invariably point out: "There's a strike, Signora, everyone wants a taxi," before hanging up. There's also a shortage of taxis.

Tonight's planned strike has raised more than a few eyebrows. People, notably the Mayor candidate Giachetti, have commented on the 'coincidence' and how 'surprising' it was that  a trade union should decide to strike at the same time as the National team first match in the Euro 2016.

The trade union in question (Ugl, one of the less scary ones) has defended its choice of timing by saying it had nothing to do with the football match but rather with the fact that, as so many people would be at home (watching the match), the strike would not be very disruptive.

So why strike? 

I will be at home with my football match pie out of the oven (got the idea off a popular food website), a beer in my hand and my feet up on the sofa. The TV will tuned in to the match, playing on RAI 1. My only problem being that my TV still needs tuning, I 'lost' the digital signal a few months ago. The quality of TV here being what it is, I haven't got round to fixing it. Nevermind I've got a few hours to figure it out. If I can't, I will go and watch the match at the pub. 

Can't. There's a strike!