School cuts prompt trade unions to take to the streets: sit-in on 11 November, meetings on 16 November

“No cuts” is the slogan chosen by the education unions for a joint (and two-stage) campaign against the staff cuts totalling nearly 7,000 posts – comprising both teaching and non-teaching staff – set out in the 2027 budget.

The joint mobilisation, announced in recent days, is thus becoming a reality. It will begin with a sit-in on Wednesday 11 November outside Palazzo Vidoni, the headquarters of the Ministry of the Civil Service, followed by assemblies in schools during school hours, to be organised for Monday 16 November.

The initiative was announced in a joint statement signed by CISL Scuola, UIL Scuola Rua, SNALS Confsal and ANIEF, and aims to launch a dialogue with the government, political parties and parliamentary groups. However, Flc Cgil is not taking part and remains committed to participating in the European student strike scheduled for 20 November.

The incident is now well known. As we reported in *Il Sole 24 Ore* on 2 November, Article 66 of the Draft Budget Bill reduces staffing levels in autonomous regions, with effect from the 2027/28 academic year, by 4,925 teachers and 2,049 technical and administrative staff, on top of the 5,660 fewer teachers in the 2025/26 academic year and the 2,174 technical and administrative staff lost in the current academic year.

Faced with this decision, there was an immediate outcry from the education sector. And it shows no sign of abating. “We cannot accept measures that take resources away from schools at a time when we need to implement policies involving significant investment,” say Ivana Barbacci, Giuseppe D’Aprile, Elvira Serafini and Marcello Pacifico, explaining the united mobilisation. “It is not only workers in the sector who bear the brunt of this, due to the resulting increase in workloads and an inevitable rise in job insecurity: the country as a whole suffers very serious harm, especially in the most disadvantaged areas, where there is a particular need for schools to be enabled to carry out their work as effectively as possible.”