ITALIAN SENSATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10687, 6 September 1920, Page 6

ITALIAN SENSATION

FACTORIES SEIZED WORKERS FORCE HANDS OF GOVERNMENT. A PROPOSED SOLUTION. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. . LONDON, September 2. Tho “Daily Chronicle’s” Milan correspondent states that tho factory-seiz-ing movement is spreading throughout Italy. Thousand* of workers stormed tho gates and scaled tho walls of the F.I.A.T. works in Turin, which employ 10,000 people, and also occupied the machinery shops of twenty other well-known automobile firms in Northern Italy. Fortunately tho majority of the companies had taken the precaution to transfer their money and valuables secretly at night from their own strongrooms to the banks. Red flags were hoisted. Industrial works were seized in Rome and Naples, chiefly those engaged in making tramcars, electrical apparatus, and armaments. Workmen’s committees aro exercising stern discipline, and have oven constituted prisons in. side the captured factories, in order to punish recalcitrants. In some places tho workmen are forging lapces in order to meet tho military if an attempt is made to dislodge them. Tho Government is averse to intervening, but Signor Labriola, Minister for Labour, after consultation with tho Catholic labour organisations, has proposed a formula of conciliation, by which’ the workers will take over the direct management of the factories through the formation of societies of skilled managers and co-operative companies among tho men, which will pay the owners a rent based on the cost of the plant.

SOVIET REGIME. ESTABLISHED- 'IN~MANY CITIES. (Received September 5, 11.5 p.m.) PARIS, September 4. An unconfirmed report from Italy states that a Soviet reginlo has been, established, in many Italian cities, including Rome; Genoa, Florence, Milan and Turin. '