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ITALY, IN COMMON WITH most other EU countries, has begun, in the last couple of years, to see accelerating growth, not only in people using the Internet but in new companies which depend on it for their living. These so called dot coms, a term taken from their web address, had 9,500 employees in 1999 rising to 29,000 in 2002. However the slowing world economy led to contraction in even this burgeoning sector. Internet portal Virgilio (roughly equivalent to Yahoo in the U.K.) was taken over by new owners in September and in January they announced the first ever redundancies at an Italian dot com. Gabriele Battaglia, a Matrix workers' representative commented `With the shift in management, what was before considered as an investment is now seen as a cost'. Despite having had more than 7.7 million users accessing 5.1 billion web pages in 2001, the new owners proposed sacking 83 of their 295 workers. The workforce struck on 24th January and five days later took part in a general strike called by the the Italian trade union confederations CGIL, UIL and CISL. |
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An image from the Italian web site which covered the Matrix strike | |||
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Allied to this traditional form of industrial action the employees created a web site to publicise their cause and to gather support and proposals. The National Institute of Social Insurance (INPS), which is the usual social security agency for mass redundancies has stressed that their schemes do not currently apply to workers in the "net economy" as this is not "in crisis". | |||
New Health & Safety site links OSHA & ILO |
EU to make zillions of new web addresses |
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CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO) and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has produced a new web site which aims to be a major European portal for health and safety information. The European agency was set up by the EU five years ago to co-ordinate Member States' health and safety organisations. The new portal pages include 'Welcome', 'News & events', 'Legislation', 'Good practice', 'Research' and 'Publications' but it also gives access to the much more numerous pages of Infocus Programme on Occupational Safety and Health at Work and the Environment (SafeWork) and the International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre (CIS). |
WHEN THE INTERNET FIRST SPRANG TO life in the nineteen-seventies it became necessary to provide addresses for each and every device connected to it. This was achieved through Internet Protocol (IPv4) which made available 4,000 million addresses, then thought to be more than enough. However it is now estimated that 2005 will see the last one allocated. The EU has contributed €55 million to research into IPv6 which will allow many more (2128 for mathematicians) addresses and the development of mobile technology such as Internet 'phones. Europe has a world lead in the field and hopes to avoid the present domination of North America which has 74% of IPv4 addresses with two universities (Stanford and MIT) each having more than China. |
The addresses of Web Sites mentioned on this page are as follows:
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The home page of the joint ILO/EU health & safety portal is at: | |
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Their 'news and events' page is at: |
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/euportal/en/news/index.htm |
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Their 'legislation ' page is at: |
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/euportal/en/legislation/index.htm |
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