Alitalia, the Italian state run airline has had a rescue deal pulled from it after the intransigence of trade unions meant those trying to save the company had to deal with workers who were physically incapable of adapting to real market conditions. Silvio Berlusconi said that this was a “catastrophe for Italian Society and trade unions”. Yet it was those Trades Unions that were responsible for the collapse in the first place, and every subsequent action made the medicine harder for them to take and the condition to get worse. Bad management had a hand in it too, but the lack of flexibility in the workers meant that the company was doomed by the unions. They refused longer hours for the same pay, well guess what Alitalia pilots, you’ll have all the spare time in the world now, just with no pay.

I can’t say I’ll mourn the airlines demise. Despite the fact that the unions were catastrophically stupid by modern standards, yet well within Union idiocy parameters; nobody likes anybody to loose their job*. They were however a truly awful airline, the aircraft were old, the seating uncomfortable, and the staff rude even by European air travel standards. The worst thing about the airline was the food however. The steak I ate out of Buenos Aires back to Rome tasted like an aircraft tire had burst and part of it had flown through the catering department window into my meal. How in the name of God’s Arse you mess Argentinean steak up is beyond me. Yet the demise of the airline is best explained by this part of an article in the Times… “Despite the crisis, Alitalia's planes continued to take off and land normally. Fifty flights were cancelled yesterday, but the airline said that this was because of a one-day strike by a small trades union”. So lets get this straight, your Company is fighting for its life, everybody knows this is the last chance you've got to save your job, and YOU GO ON STRIKE!


*unless you’re one of these trots gloating about all the bankers that will be fired at Lehman’s– you won’t be laughing when the subsequent drop in tax revenue hits your Council Community Planning department and a bunch of nurses get fired.