Italy's largest airline was thrown a lifeline when the Italian government gave its airline workers' union one week to accept sever job cuts as part of a merger with a smaller rival. Alitalia SpA, which had declared bankruptcy only last week, has been hurt for the last decade by spiraling labor costs and work stoppages, and hasn't turned an operating profit in all that time. The Italian government is hoping to save the troubled airline by sanctioning a merger with smaller Air One SpA, a move that would cut the combined workforce for the two companies from 20,000 to about 14,500 workers.
See "Alitalia Unions Are Given Deadline to Accept Cuts", Luca Di Leo and Guglielmo Valia, The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2008