Strike at the L'Opera San Carlo

Actually I did run into some "actions" (strikes) in Napoli. I tried to see the Opera at Teatro San Carlo... I'd heard San Carlo is the second most important opera house after La Scala in Milan and it is certainly an impressive building. Unfortunately it was opening night and it was sold out (or fortunately, since the tickets cost between 30 and 250 Euros). There was a crowd of people milling around the opera house door and maybe a dozen or so polizia/carbinieri with fibreglass shields and riot helmets, but the crowd was completely relaxed- no action here. Actually I thought they were opera fans waiting for rush tickets. Ah, mai non. It turned out they were social workers on strike. They had been working without pay for 30 months or so, or at least that's what someone on the picket line told me. They were unable to negotiate a contact with the region (Campagna) which was too broke to make payroll. I thought I'd misheard or misunderstood- but I asked around and surely enough, the social workers hadn't been paid in nearly three years. Yikes! But how did they survive. "We don't," said a striker in broken English, "it's very off the edge." I urged him to make some signs or posters otherwise dumb Americano and other foreigners (like me) were bound to mistake them for opera fans and cross the picket line. I think I took a picture or two... let me see...