Italians protest labor reform plans

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)

Italian public workers and students went on strike on Friday (November 14) and staged protests all over Italy as unions stepped up their resistance to a government labor reform set by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The strikes planned by nation-wide unions came as Renzi's government prepared to push new legislation through parliament by the end of the year.

The unions, whose crumbling power base is heavily dependent on the public service and a declining number of large industrial employers, have fiercely resisted the changes, believing the rights of workers would be undermined.

In a deliberate attack on one of the central pillars of the Italian left, Renzi pledged to scrap rules which offer workers in companies with more than 15 employees the right to win their jobs back in cases of unjustified dismissal.

As well as discouraging foreign employers, the Italian Prime Minister said the rules, which only apply to employees on fu