Italian FedEx striker beaten by bosses' thugs

Submitted by AWL on 15 June, 2021 - 6:27
Abdelhamid Elazab

A courier for FedEx in Northern Italy, Abdelhamid Elazab, has been in a coma in hospital after being beaten around the head with a broken pallet by thugs brought in to attack protesting workers on 11 June. Nine other FedEx workers from Piacenza were injured less seriously.

The report from the workers’ trade union SI Cobas says they were attacked by men from Zampieri Holdings, the shipping company at whose warehouses in Lodi, thirty miles from Piacenza, the protest took place. The union calls Zampieri a “mafia organisation” and the “armed hand” of FedEx. It says the police stood by and allowed the violence to happen.

SI Cobas has been waging a struggle against thousands of job cuts in the logistics industry, already before this facing heavy police aggression. The FedEx facility in Piacenza is due to close.

The FedEx courier workforce is predominantly migrant, no small fact in Italy’s current right-wing political environment.

There is a national strike in Italy’s transport and logistics industries on Friday 18 June and a demonstration in protest at the attack on the Piacenza workers in Rome on Saturday 19th.

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