tyn

I think it's a geo factor more than luck
UBS has little pull here up North, their strong base is in Central Italy. Here it is CGIL that calls the shots.

OliverB

If this took place on the 20th, nobody informed anyone in Venice! It was business as usual in the city. Too bad the jerkoffs selling those neon blue flashing helicopters in Piazza S.Marco don't go on strike!

Perche

According to the papers it seems as if the strike reached most places, north and south, with Milan and Naples being the two least affected cities. The strike mainly affected transportation, so if you were already where you needed to be it wouldn't necessarily be noticed.

Reading the papers:
1. Rome was in chaos, with historic traffic jams. In Milan and Naples there were disruptions due to marching protestors that blocked parts of downtown transportation, but the trains and funiculars still ran pretty normally for most of the day.

2. Torino had a 30-60% reduction in services for part of the day, with transportation described as semi-regular. Even during a strike in Italy, transportation still goes on during the parts of the day when people need to come and go to work.

4. In the northeast, Friulia-Venezia-Giulia was significantly affected, especially Trieste and Udine as was Genoa in the northwest.

5. Although it was mainly about transportation, schools and many public services such as fire departments, post offices, and garbage collection were shut down across many parts of the country. Even many cemeteries were closed, so there was no place to bury the dead.

6. Venice and Treviso put out bulletins not to go to the airport until you checked with you airline to see if the flight was canceled. The airports at both of these cities were described as calamitous due to lack of porters and other services, but in the end there were some flight delays but not many cancelations.

7. Bologna got hit hard. Emilia-Romagna, and Bologna in particular, are very susceptible to workers' strikes as they were ruled by communists for decades after WWII, and just left communism fairly recently. Along with Tuscany, Umbria and Le Marche, it formed the "Red Quadrilateral" of Italian communism until the early 1990's.

8. Venice was without vaporetti for a portion of the day. This is always significant to elderly Venetians because having to go up and down a bridge every 20-40 yards to get anywhere is not something that elderly people can easily do, especially carrying groceries, so they depend on the water buses.

No doubt, it could have been worse. This article lists the effects on many cities.
http://www.today.it/cronaca/sciopero...016-orari.html
http://www.veneziatoday.it/cronaca/s...obre-2016.html

Perche

In case anyone is in Rome this Thursday, a friend here just mentioned there will be a transportation strike. Back in the apartment I looked it up, and it is true.
http://www.romatoday.it/cronaca/scio...glio-2017.html

A strike every two weeks or so in Rome makes the train system much more reliable than the train system in the New York region, where delays, derailments, shutdowns, are much more common.
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/0...ellations.html

Usually, you can figure out why they are going on strike. I cannot figure this one out. What I've heard is that they are going on strike to protest that a few people in the government questioned their right to strike.

There is almost always a, "fascia di garanzia," or a time when the strike is suspended so that people can get to and from work. After all, a strike is usually just to inconvenience people, not to make them mad.

Sciopero Roma | 20 luglio 2017 | Orari | Metro bus a rischio
„Nel dettaglio il primo stop, che durerŕ tutta la giornata, avrŕ le fasce di garanzie tra le 5.30 e le 8.30 e tra le 17 e le 20. Negli altri orari metro, ferrovie concesse, bus e tram sono a rischio. “
In other words, everything will work between 5:30AM and 8:30AM, and between 5PM and 8PM. If you are affected, just plan around those times.

Perche

As predicted. I am going out for a gelato night cap and just checked one of the USA newspapers. Every day there has been a headline like this, all summer long.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...lery-1.3332600
Give me the reliability of the Italian train system with its occasional strikes, but with fascia di garanzia. It's much more reliable than traveling to NYC.

snic

I'll take the bait.

NYC's problems tend to hit one train or subway line. Doesn't a strike shut down (or slow down) the entire system?

Perche

It's never one train or line. In July there were 70,000 train delays in NYC. When a line goes down, every train line that crosses or follows on those tracks cannot get through. When Penn Station goes down, it's felt to the most eastern parts of Long Island, up to Connecticut, and down to New Jersey. Last Thursday in Rome there was a four hour strike. Big deal, compared to traveling in NYC. Unlike the USA, in Italy the drivers strike and have coffee, then start up again. In the USA it is derailments, fires, and other disasters from an aging, broken down system that keeps breaking down.

Just go into Penn Station or the subway in Times Square. It's like La Guardia airport. To call it third world is an insult to the third world. Go to the subway in Naples, or Torino, and the difference between modern transportation and transportation in the USA will leave you stunned. You just need to read the headlines. Every day the trains are broken because they derail, they go on spontaneous fire, the overhead wires collapse and fall on them. Once a month or so there is a strike in Italy, and even during the strike, there are periods of time where the trains run normally. In NYC, you cannot count on the trains.
http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires...icle-1.3338044
http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires...icle-1.3345581
http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires...icle-1.3337066
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3336638
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.3335142
http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires...icle-1.3332638
http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires...icle-1.3329104

KLouis

Simply +1

snic

I completely agree with you that NYC's aging infrastructure is horrific compared to what a modern system can be. However, it's not quite true that you can't count on the trains. Many people do every day, and the number of disruptions is still low compared to the number of successful trips.

Now, if you give me a modern transit system WITHOUT the constant strikes, I'll take that over NYC, Naples and Torino...