Protests erupt in Italy over cuts to poverty relief scheme
Protests erupt in Italy over cuts to poverty relief scheme
Discontent mounted on Monday in Italy over cuts to a poverty relief scheme by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's rightist government that will affect hundreds of thousands of people.
"I'm 58 and I cannot enter the labour market because they always tell me that at my age, 58, I am not (employable), just a few odd jobs, always off the books, underpaid."
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ROME, July 31 (Reuters) - Discontent mounted on Monday in Italy over cuts to a poverty relief scheme by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's rightist government that will affect hundreds of thousands of people.
In Naples, trade unionists and far-left activists organised a rally outside the headquarters of welfare agency INPS, while in a small town in Sicily an unemployed man threatened to set the office of the mayor on fire.
INPS last week sent a text message to roughly 160,000 people to warn them they would be excluded from the scheme - a method of communication that has been criticised as "brutal" by the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Elly Schlein.
"I'm 58 and I cannot enter the labour market because they always tell me that at my age, 58, I am not (employable), just a few odd jobs, always off the books, underpaid", one of the Naples protesters told RAI public TV.
The snag is that registration procedures to access the new subsidies are not yet fully available, raising fears payments will not start for a while, leaving people with no form of income support for months.
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