One worker was stabbed and another hit by a car as a group of striking workers outside an SDA warehouse in Carpiano, near Milan, was ambushed last night by a group of over 100 attackers armed with knives and metal bars.

***Updated: 26/09/2017 13:45.***

In a post on Facebook, the workers' union, SI Cobas, said they had come under attack by a "group of strikebreaking fascists and gangers who had arrived from Salerno" and called on all supporters to make their way down to the picket.

A statement published by the union earlier today said: "Yesterday evening, Monday 25 September, a little after 9pm, a pro-employer squad originating from various cities, composed of between 100-200 people, attacked a workers' picket that has continuously for eight day maintained a strike outside the SDA warehouse in Carpiano in an attempt to disperse it.

"One worker was hit by a car driven at full speed and has suffered injuries to his foot. Another worker was stabbed in the hand and suffered injuries in one eye. Only the workers' prompt and courageous reaction in self-defence avoided anything worse and forced the aggressors to retreat."

The union also says that the attack was organised via a closed Facebook group whose members include bosses from SDA and contains highly racist comments (with one member having a picture of Mussolini as his profile photo) as well as anti-worker and anti-SI Cobas statements.

The strike, which has been going on since last week, is over the introduction of a new outsourcing company in charge of managing the warehouse who are trying to roll back all the gains made by workers in their struggles of the last five years.

This is not the first time that warehouse workers have come under attack by organised crime. In 2014, a SI Cobas organiser was savagely beaten in Milan.

Moreover, links between far-right groups and the mafia are also not uncommon, nor are their links to the sorts of outsourcing 'cooperatives' which often manage warehouses in Italy, as shown in the 2014 revelations in Rome.