Romania students strike Thousands of Romanian students protested last week in Bucharest demanding higher grants and better hostel conditions. More than 5,000 students converged on the central University Square in the capital, rattling plastic bottles filled with pebbles. They blocked traffic through the square, where hundreds of people were shot during the December 1989 protests that led to the fall of the Stalinist Ceausescu regime. We have called an indefinite strike in most academic centres, after the authorities rejected our demands,'' said Luis Lazarus, head of the all-country students' association. Nearly 10 years after the collapse of Stalinism and the promises of a new prosperity with the introduction of the capitalist market, little has been done to improve conditions in campuses around the country's mainly state-funded colleges.
Students often have to offer bribes just to secure a bed in a hall of residence.
Telecom Italia workers strike Telecommunication workers in Italy staged a one-day strike on Wednesday, October 27 to demand government intervention into the restructuring plans of Telecom Italia. The plan proposes a partial spin-off of Telecom Italia's 60 percent stake in mobile unit TIM into Tecnost. Workers are concerned that this and other measures proposed by the company could result in 13,000 layoffs at the former state monopoly. A UIL trade union leader said 60 percent of telecom employees had joined the strike. UIL telecom General-Secretary Luigi Ferrando said in a statement.