In 1871 the deputy e engineer Quintino Sella carried out an in-depth investigation into the conditions of themining industry in Sardinia. In the eighteen days spent on the island he therefore visited the mines and metallurgical industries, and – among other things – noted the disparity in salary treatment between Sardinian miners and those from the rest of Italy. Among the stages also Buggerrua large mining village and the fifth largest inhabited center on the island.
Buggerru mine
Everything in the area was then property of the Malfidano mining companiesfounded in Paris and why the center was also known as petite Paris, given precisely the origin of the dominant aristocracy, which had rebuilt a certain cultural climate throughout the entire Buggerru. Achille Georgiades, a Greek who arrived in Sardinia to manage the Company’s mines, which had its own operational center in the village, was also part of this group. The miners, however, were united in the Resistance League, forced to work inhumane shifts, underpaid and victims of frequent fatal accidents at work. It was in response to these conditions that a tumultuous series of strikes began in the early months of 1904, which were reinvigorated in May, when four people lost their lives in yet another accident.
However, the moment of maximum tension was reached only in September. In fact, on the 2nd the director issued the decision that would unleash hell: the rest hours for those who worked outside the mine were reduced, and from the four hours foreseen until then it was reduced to only three. In Sardinia – the miners believed – the temperatures did not allow them to resume work as early as 1pm, and this led them to leave all work positions unprotected from the same day.
In the evening, two socialist militants arrived in Buggerru, Giuseppe Cavallera and Alcibiade Battelli, members of the League, and on Sunday the 4th, while the delegation was negotiating with the management and the workers were gathered in front of the headquarters of the general management, two companies arrived instead. of the 42nd Infantry Regiment, that help so much invoked by the management of the mine. It was then decided to place the soldiers in the carpentry premises, and three miners were given the task of preparing the premises. When the already nervous crowd began throwing stones at the windows of the building – to force the soldiers to send the three men back out – the tension reached its peak, and the army fired on the crowd. Two remained on the ground, killed instantly, while a third – Giustino Pittau – died after fifteen days in hospital. In reality, a fourth also died just twenty days later, but there are no reliable sources to trace his death to the shooting of that tragic September 4th.
The emotional, social and political impact was immediate, not only on the country but on the entire state, and in response the Milan Chamber of Labor decided to call the first national strike in the history of Italy. Already on 14 September, in Trapani, a new strike ended with a barrage of bullets directed by the army at the farmers in procession.
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