Precarious Workers' Patron Saint

Born in 2001 the Italian MayDay has become the most attended May Day demonstration in Europe: 120,000 people took the streets of Milan and danced until dawn in 2010 under the slogan “Precarious of the world, let’s fight!” Since 2004 San Precario is the patron saint of precarious European workers. The San Precario Network is devoted to defend the workers rights but we also strive to imagine a new set of rights, a new welfare that matches the needs and lives of this precarious generation. Born within the Italian social centers movement, our collective provides legal support, tactical help and social-media skills, as well as brand subverting and political theorizing.

Our more recent campaigns are: Cash & Crash, a series of actions against evil companies wallets and brands; Welfare for Life! A campaign to guarantee fix income and free access to services; the Etats-General of Precarity, a general assembly of Italian and European movements which will be held in October; and of course, the EuroMayDay Parade.

http://www.precaria.org
EuroMayDay: http://www.euromayday.org
Chainworkers: http://www.ecn.org/chainworkers
Etats-General of Precarity (in English)
http://www.precaria.org/general-assembly-of-the-estates-of-precarity.html

Videos:
San Precario appears
http://www.youtube.com/chainworkers#p/a/u/1/KdgE5NY8p8U
Tutti Santi Tutti Stronzi http://chainworkers.org/node/295
Mayday 2010 Special http://www.precaria.org/speciale-mayday-2010

Pandora: The Can Opener

http://www.pandoratv.it/

The mass media in Italy is pretty much controlled by billionaire/politician Berlusconi, but a new initiative has been announced called Pandora. Their opening manifesto declares that they are an independent source on the web, regional networks and satellite. Pandora is started by independent communication professionals, but is open to "anyone who has something to say." They deny that they will be a "megaphone for anyone or anything" but say they will give voice to those who have none. Pandora non è il megafono di qualcuno o per qualcuno, Pandora vuole dare voce a chi non ce l'ha.Pandora wants to be a model of authentic television as a public service. The only publishers are the readers themselves. " Pandora vuole proporsi come esempio autentico di televisione di servizio pubblico, cioè una televisione che risponde ad un unico editore: i suoi telespettatori..."
With little resources for advertising, the network depends on "word of mouth" (solo sul passaparola). They hope to make Pandora a diverse voice with "remote control capacity." (a "portata di telecomando"... )

Many of the Pandora initiators are long-time politicians on the Italian left (such as Giulietto Chiesa) but Pandora hopes to mobilize younger activists and grass roots movements to become involved. Several years ago a similar initiative called NOWARTV, worked with Candida TV and Telestreets, to transmit alternative programming in several cities throughout Italy. A documentary about telestreets with an interview with Frano Bernardi (Bifo) the founder of Orfeo TV is posted at http://www.archive.org/details/telestreet2 It is worth noting that both Orfeo and Pandora make reference in their name to powerful Greek myths!

Telestreet in Italy

This video was made by Andrew Lowenthal and Tim Parish from Engage Media in 2005. The documentary speaks with activists from TeleAut and SpegnilaTV about the process of building and running a Telestreet and media theorist Franco Berardi (Bifo) about the broader social and political implications. At the present time, it seems the Telestreet movement is over. Perhaps someone can see this and update the situation.