1.
LV Strikers outside closed store
0.05

2.
SV PAN ZOOM Student strikers
0.13

3.
LV & CU People wait for taxis outside railway station
0.22

4.
SV INTERIOR Empty ticket booths
0.26

5.
GV PAN Deserted railway lines and platform
0.32

6.
LV PAN People at bus station
0.37

7.
SV Army lorries
0.42

8.
SV Children with bags walk to lorry
0.47

9.
SV People board lorry
0.50

10.
SV Child lifted onto lorry
0.53

11.
SV Man and women helped onto lorry
1.04

12.
GV PAN Colosseum TO demonstrators with banners
1.07

13.
TV Demonstrators march down street with trolley
1.15

14.
CU Men on tractor with banners
1.19

15.
TV PAN Marchers down street
1.30



Initials BB/2317 BL/MR/BB/2335



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Nearly 13 million workers went on a series of strikes across Italy today (Wednesday, 27 February) to support trade union demands for a wide range of social and labour reforms.

The strikes -- which in the Rome area were to last 24 hours -- affected industry, transport and education.

They were called by Italy's three main trade union groups to put pressure on the country's four-party coalition Government to introduce the reforms.

In Rome, tens of thousands of workers marched through the streets. Public transport was at a standstill, and traffic became chaotic as people poured into the city by car. Most shops remained open.

Union leaders emphasised that they did not wish to bring the coalition Government down. But they said they had no other way of expressing their dissatisfaction with what they called the Government's "chronic inertia" over labour problems.