Word: turin
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...Turin, Fiat's Northern Italian home, Bonfante found a spreading mood of disquiet...
...wintry cold had already rolled down the slopes of the Piedmontese Alps to Turin, once the quasi-Parisian capital of the house of Savoy and now the Detroit of Italy. Outside Gate 20 of Fiat's Mirafiore plant, a toothless peddler hawked candy that he caustically called "special nougats for the economic crisis." Emerging workers were in no mood for sick jokes, and they bought none of the candy. Instead, they turned to union men passing out notices of protest strikes called against Fiat's shortened week...
Fear, resentment and an inflation rate of 33.6% in Turin - the national average is 21.2% - provoked rare civil demonstrations. When the city raised bus fares 30%, union leaders ordered "bus representatives" to take over fare collections on commuter buses at the old rates, thereby forcing the increase down to a lower, more acceptable rate. In Borgo Vittorio, a working-class quarter, residents lined up at a tent pitched under a wall covered with anti- American slogans - NO TO ROCKEFELLER-CIA-AUSTERITY - to have electric bills reduced...
Citizens then take the fake bills to Turin's post office and pay the lesser rate...
Things are bound to get worse. The Fiat layoff will eventually affect 50,000 employees of satellite industries. Turin householders, meanwhile, have already been notified that heating-oil prices will be doubled this year from $15 a month to $30 for a two-room apartment...