The city centres of two Europe’s biggest capitals were shut down this weekend after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against austerity measures.
In London, an estimated 150,000 public sector workers, families and unemployed people rallied together behind the Trade Union Congress’s slogan “A Future That Works”.
In Rome, up to 30,000 protestors marched through the streets to call for an end to public spending cuts, tax increases and factory closures.
The UK also saw further protests in Glasgow, Scotland and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
All protests passed without incident.
According to the BBC, the number of protestors in the UK was down on the estimated 500,000 protestors at the TUC march in March 2011.
But the TUC said it was happy with the turnout and that the success of the march sent a strong message to the government.
“Austerity isn’t working. It is hitting our jobs, our services, our living standards. It is hammering the poorest and the most vulnerable,” TUC leader Brendan Barber said at the rally.
“And austerity is failing even on its own terms, for this is a government of broken promises".
The TUC wants the UK’s centre-right Conservative government to introduce policies which promote new and old industries and invest in training as a way to stimulate growth rather than focusing on deep spending cuts.
In a recent article, the Guardian’s economics leader writer Aditya Chakrabortty warned that “if [finance minister] George Osborne gets his way, within the next five years, Britain will have a smaller public sector than any other major developed nation.”
Blowing horns and whistles, demonstrators also called on Prime Minister David Cameron to do more to revive Britain’s struggling economy.
However, his Conservative-led coalition is still reeling from a double-whammy of events which have entrenched its elitist image.
On Friday, government chief whip Andrew Mitchell resigned nearly a month after he was accused of swearing at a police officer and calling him a "pleb", a derogatory, classist term.
The following day, finance minister George Osborne made headlines after he was caught in a first-class train carriage with a standard-class ticket.
Speaking at a TUC rally in London’s Hyde Park, opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband described Cameron as “a weak and clueless prime minister" to a cheering crowd.
"Andrew Mitchell may have resigned but the culture of two nations runs right across this government. They cut taxes for millionaires and they raise taxes for ordinary families."
Work before all else
In Italy, it was mainly members of the country’s biggest union, the left-wing CGIL, who rallied in central Rome, under the banners with the slogan “Work before all else”.
“The politics of austerity is not only a failure but it is guilty of causing the difficulties in this country,” said Susanna Camusso, CGIL general secretary.
Camusso blamed the cuts to social spending introduced by Prime Minister Mario Monti, an EC former commissioner, demanding instead new investments in production and industry.
The measures imposed by Monti to tackle the country’s vast debt seem not to have boosted growth, nor employment; instead they have increased taxes on low income workers.
“There is little attention to the working class, to pensioners and wage earners and the government should instead fight against tax evasion and corruption, the core of our problems today,” added Camusso.
The unions will again take to the streets on 14 November, when labour organisations across Europe are planning continent-wide actions.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for a Day of Action and Solidarity, to mobilise workers in support of ETUC policies set out in the “Social Compact for Europe”.
