SLC CGIL, Fistel CISL and UILFPC UIL called Italian call-centre workers out from 13 to 27 July, the sector's first coordinated national mobilisation against AI-driven job cuts1. The three are the telecommunications federations of CGIL, CISL and UIL, Italy's main union confederations. The action was designed to bite without emptying the floor: a two-hour stoppage at the end of each shift for full-time staff, one hour for part-timers, and a ban on overtime across the whole period.
The overtime ban does the work. Outsourced call centres cover demand peaks with flexible hours rather than with headcount, so withdrawing overtime strips out the buffer employers use to absorb volume without hiring, and queues lengthen at exactly the hours clients measure. In Piedmont the unions put nearly 2,000 local call-centre jobs at risk.
What the unions want is process rather than a halt: structured dialogue with the government on employment protection, a managed transition instead of an abrupt one, and guaranteed retraining. SLC CGIL has not asked employers to stop deploying the technology. It has asked the state to referee the speed at which the technology arrives. American screen directors reached a comparable settlement in June, taking AI footage rights and declining to seek a training ban.
