ROME — Tourists sat in frustration on their backpacks in the muggy heat of train stations across Italy on Friday amid a one-day rail strike that affected service across the nation, reported a wire service.
The strike, resulting from a contract dispute, began Thursday evening and was ending Friday night. Many Italians made other travel plans, but some foreign tourists were caught unaware.
Tourist Carole King of Toronto killed time in Rome’s Termini station.
“Impressive is the Colosseum. Impressive is the Forum. Impressive is the Vatican. Strikes are not impressive. Strikes are annoying,” she told Associated Press Television News.
Italy’s three major railway unions organized the strike with several smaller organizations. The workers were trying to pressure the government into agreeing to a new contract, after their last one ran out at the end of 1999.
Some 560 trains run on a typical day in Italy, excluding local routes, but only 162 were pulling out of the stations Friday. Law requires that some service continue despite strikes.
Train service continued in Sicily, where workers were on the job to donate part of their day’s wages to victims of a train crash near Messina last Saturday that killed eight people.