Labor reform draws protests in Italy

ROME -- Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on Saturday protested efforts by Premiere Silvio Berlusconi to make it easier to fire workers, and denounced the assassination of a government adviser on labor reform.

Union leaders claimed that at least 2 million people heeded their call for the rally in the Italian capital, but the number appeared to be far less. Rome's police headquarters put the count at more than 700,000.

A sea of red caps, swirling red Communist flags and union banners, could be seen on the boulevard lining the Tiber River near the demonstrators' rallying point in Circus Maximus, the ancient Roman space for entertainment.

Before the rally began, heads were bowed for a minute of silence in respect for Marco Biagi, an economist and government consultant who was gunned down Tuesday in an attack claimed by the Red Brigades, a leftist group that terrorized Italy with assassinations in the 1970s and 1980s.

Organizers declared that the rally would denounce the killing as an assault on democracy. Biagi, through his role as a chief drafter of the legislation aimed at ending Italy's system of virtual lifetime employment, was an opponent of the union.

Many politicians from the center and left joined the rally, including former Premier Massimo D'Alema, a leader of the Democratic Left, a former Communist party: "We're here to say no to terrorism."

The leader of the Communist-backed CGIL labor confederation Sergio Cofferati told the crowd the killing was carried out just when "workers and citizens were mobilizing to claim their legitimate rights."