Italian public workers and students went on strike today and staged protests all over Italy as unions stepped up their resistance to a government labour reform set by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The strikes planned by nation-wide unions came as Renzi's government prepared to push new legislation through parliament by the end of the year.

The unions, whose crumbling power base is heavily dependent on the public service and a declining number of large industrial employers, have fiercely resisted the changes, believing the rights of workers would be undermined.

In a deliberate attack on one of the central pillars of the Italian left, Renzi pledged to scrap rules which offer workers in companies with more than 15 employees the right to win their jobs back in cases of unjustified dismissal.

As well as discouraging foreign employers, the Italian Prime Minister said the rules, which only apply to employees on full contracts, discriminate against the growing number of workers on vulnerable short-term contracts.

Students marched alongside protesting workers in Rome, with flares lighting the sky, and firecrackers and eggs being thrown outside the German embassy and of the Ministry of Finances.

Job protection legislation, centred on Article 18 of the labour statute, is the most sensitive part of a wider shake up of employment law promised when Renzi took office in February.

As well as enraging unions nation-wide, the reform is said to have caused deep unease among members of the Democratic Party, Renzi's center-left party leading to a debate over the actual impact of the rules.

The reform, currently making its way through parliament, would allow workers laid off for justifiable business reasons to receive a financial payoff, but they would have no right to reinstatement.

Under provisions agreed by Renzi's party yesterday, however, they would allow courts to order a company to reinstate workers ruled to have been wrongfully dismissed for disciplinary reasons.