Italy: Demolishing Resistance
by Donato Romito, for FdCA
Translation by Nestor McNab
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The Italian government and Italian capital are busy
demolishing what was born from anti-fascist resistance and
from the social battles of the 1960s and 1970s. It is
apparently as a result of their desperation, fully
conscious as it may be, to turn Italy into a
mega-corporation under the control of the new right and its
new boss, Baron Berlusconi. During the time of the three
centre-left governments from 1996 to 2001, it was known as
the "modernization" of the country in order to turn Italy
into a "normal" country. They were to be five years of
crazed "reforms" (sic!) of all of what was good in the
social organization of the country, not to mention the
fundamental labour rights, "reformed" with the connivance
of the traditional unions, Cgil, Cisl and Uil. Today's
centre-right governing coalition is continuing this job of
dismantling and deconstruction but with greater attention
being paid, both to the big picture of progressive
privatizations of the public aspects of social life, and in
the processes of the subordination of the Italian and
migrant proletariat to the interests of capital.
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IS YOUR ECONOMY GOING DOWN THE DRAIN? WELL THEN, SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!
This is the slogan which the government is using in order
to affront the present situation at the limits of
recession: growth for 2002 is 0.4% and the forecast for
2003 is possibly 1.4%; the debt is at 110.3%; wages have
increased by 2.3% while official inflation is at +2.8%
(though REAL inflation is at 3.5%). Given the situation,
public-sector pay increases are fixed at just 1.4%; the
government has approved a law on total labour flexibility
and is about to pass another on the freedom to dismiss and
on the pension system. This attack on wages, employment and
social security is on a vast scale. At the same time it
looks on contentedly while the whole country is prey to
devastating de-industrialization. The crisis in the
industrial sector (with Fiat at the head), the food sector
(Cirio), and telecommunications (Marconi) is affecting
thousands of workers, with repercussions also in related
industries. The Fiat crisis in particular is affecting the
entire country from north to south, and the agreement
between the company and the government of December 5
provides for unrelenting re-sizing with the initial loss of
8,100 factory jobs and the future prospect of turning
factory workers into nurses, supermarket check-out staff,
security guards and cleaning staff for shopping centres!
The progressive withdrawal of Fiat from a strategic sector
such as the automobile sector can only have extremely
worrying effects on industrial employment in Italy. And its
partner, General Motors, does not promise much better,
either.
THE STATE LOOKS AFTER YOU FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE... BUT YOU ARE THE ONES WHO PAY!
Theories on the "light" State are interpreted just as
coherently, if not more so, by the centre-right government
than by the centre-left colleagues. The 2003 Budget
provides for a series of cuts in public spending,
particulary savage in the areas of education (all levels),
research, local government agencies (regarding the health
service, social services etc.). On the other hand, it
provides for tax benefits for individual workers who it is
thought can help to slow down the increasing costs of
social services or who can obtain these services elsewhere,
on the market. Those things which were entitlements
(education, assistance, health, pensions etc.) become
opportunities available at a market price. So we get the
situation where there are cuts in the provision of teachers
for the disabled, whose families then have to turn to
private structures in order to obtain assistance (most of
which structures are in the hands of the Catholic church,
naturally. Many of the services provided by local agencies
(transport, assistance to the disabled, the old, migrants
etc.) will cost more and may be farmed out to private
(Catholic) agencies ... at market prices, of course. In the
wake of the privatization of public utilities along comes
the next step in the subversive plan, a step which is dear
to the hearts of the centre-left too. It is called
subsidiarity, and provides for public institutions to
intervene in social matters only when, wait for it, the
private sector is not or cannot dealing with it! How? By
financing the private sector, of course! > > The close
connection between this strategy and the law on devolution
which provides for the transfer of powers in the fields of
education, health and local policing to the various
regions, definitively destroys the equality of rights, the
very concept of collective interests, the very dimension of
proletarian unity on a national level, by atomizing
everything into single needy individuals and single
personal interests rather than at a level of class.
Furthermore, the insistence with which Italian capitalists
demand an end to the days of collective national work
contracts to clear the way for separate company contracts
or individual contracts, rounds off the scene in a country
which risks collapse and the annihilating of social rights
and liberties.
THE CGIL KNOCKS ONCE... BUT NOT TWICE!
Following the big general strike of the "base" unions in
February 2002, the CGIL got a bit of a jolt. Its tactics
suddenly became more radical, it placed itself in firm
opposition to the government and it came out in defence of
Article 18 of the Workers' Statute (1971) which protects
workers from unfair dismissal and which the government
wants to abolish. Not one, but two general strikes made the
workers once more hopeful about the CGIL, after many years
of disappointment. They even sacrificed the unity with the
CISL and UIL, who both signed the "Pact for Italy" with the
government, thereby authorizing greater flexibility in the
jobs market, with exceptions on Article 18 in exchange for
tax promises. It is above all the FIOM (CGIL industrial
workers) which is dragging Italy's biggest union along with
it, having abandoned the tactic of partnership in
industrial areas. The renewed combativity of the CGIL on a
national level can be traced to a series of political
factors, including:
- the refusal of the centre-right government to continue
with the practice of "partnership" or "triangulation"
(government-unions-bosses) in order to substitute it with
"social dialogue" in which the government's opinion is
non-negotiable
- the crisis of the Italian left and in particular the Left
Democrats (DS) following their election defeat in 2001
- the questioning of the role of confederate unions in
Italy as an integral part of the governance of the
country's socio-economic matters, together with the bosses
and the government
The CGIL, therefore, is not shifting its strategic axis
towards a more radical, anti-capitalist approach to
syndicalism - it is standing against the present government
in order to regain, to reconquer its central role in
co-determining the country's socio-economic choices. It
should be remembered that this role of the CGIL (together
with the CISL and UIL) played a large part during the 1990s
in the need for the formation and the expansion of
grassroots unions in Italy, not to mention the somewhat
hurried accusation of "state union" made by certain
commentators, anarchist and otherwise. It goes without
saying that the CGIL's potential force is still impressive
and goes beyond the power of its capacity to attract
sectors of the social opposition (social centres, the
"disobedient" etc.) with the capability of overshadowing
other contributions to the struggle against the government.
CGIL speak with forked tongue, though. Its massive national
opposition to the government is not backed up with coherent
action when it comes to agreeing contracts, and it is here
that it re-discovers its unity with the CISL and UIL,
signing agreements like in the days of "partnership".
Serious as they may be, they are actions which are destined
to remain in the shadows of the the social opposition
movement, except for the base unions.
THE BASE UNIONS
[see below] The Cobas Confederation, RdB/CUB, CIB Unicobas, SLAI Cobas,
S.in.Cobas, and USI are the most important of the base
unions on the basis of the sector, company or town where
they grew from. They operate both in the public and private
sectors and are generally excluded from discussions on the
creation of new national labour contracts, although they
have had some excellent results in union elections in the
workplace. Their contribution to the union opposition
movement is more global - they are opposed to the
modifications to Art.18, but also to the decentralized
agreements that the CGIL-CISL-UIL trio continue to make. On
18th October they organized separate marches to those of
the CGIL on the occasion of the General Strike, and won
considerable support with their slogan "United on the day,
but separate in our objectives". A certain inclination for
squabbling as a result of rivalry between the various base
unions has meant that they fail to cooperate on much else
than unitary demonstrations, so even though the CGIL is
criticized for its ambiguity, the base unions, on the other
hand, do not offer a solid alternative which would have a
wide, unified presence. It should be said that life is made
harder for the base unions by the obstacles to union
representation that are put in their way by the
CGIL-CISL-UIL. The base unions, however, have by now
reached the position of being real protagonists in the
union and social struggles in those places where they are
strongest. The general strike for the schools and public
sectors called by the RdB/CUB, Cobas Confederation and CIB
Unicobas on 6th December was joined by 25% of the workers
in those sectors and brought 50,000 people onto the streets
of Rome.
AGAINST WAR, AGAINST REPRESSION
Union struggles are closely intertwined with social
struggles. From the struggles of migrants for rights to
peace demonstrations culminating on November 9 in Florence
to demonstrations against repression, the opposition
movement is growing both in size and in popular
participation. The arrests of activists in both Cosenza and
Genoa brought a reply not only from militants, but from the
two towns themselves. The State is afraid of this growth in
struggle and also of the links between the social and union
struggles. Repression is being used as a weapon of
intimidation to frighten and foster insecurity, above all
in the South where discontent is high. The magistracy
apparently wishes to pin the movement down to the days in
Genoa in 2001, by forcing it to reconstruct the events and
declare that Giuliani was not killed for reasons of
legitimate defence, but was murdered and that the incidents
were provoked by the police and carabinieri. And this
strange game of arrest-release-more arrests-drop charges
makes one think that the magistracy has "gone mad" and that
it needs to be reformed: and that is exactly what the
government wants and the centre-left with it!
ANARCHIST COMMUNISTS
There are three opposition currents to the Berlusconi
government and the Confindustria (industrial employers
confederation) which find a meeting point in situations of
largescale mobilizations. One is the so-called
"girotondini" movement (led by film director Nanni Moretti)
which view the laws approved by the government (in favour
of Berlusconi's own interests) as a serious attack on
democracy and legality. The second comes from the struggles
for social rights and liberties which tend to concentrate
more directly on the contradictions within neo-liberalism
and the creation of social spaces where a new solidarity
can be organized. The third current is that of the labour
struggles which have served to bring the question of labour
back to the centre of social conflict. We believe that,
albeit on different levels, all three serve to create a
situation of widespread opposition to the centre-right
government and to the choices of the bosses. In particular,
our role is more important with the social and union
struggles where the presence and in fact the spread of
libertarian practices provide a guarantee of coherence
between the objectives and the methods we use to reach
them. In fact, the FdCA favours elements of unity in order
to federate groups and individuals which have common
interests and objectives. For this reason, in the case of
war our policy will be the creation of anti-war committees,
characterized by anti-militarism and by the rejection of
all nationalism. The fight for the creation of social
spaces for the spread of an alternative culture, of
non-religious solidarity and of self-organization is one
area where anarchist communists are active. But above all,
in the struggles of the workers and in their unions we aim
for the spread of radical syndicalism with a characteristic
platform and an unmistakable practice. A platform based on
unshakable rights as regards wages, hours, health and union
freedom; a practice which is unmistakable because it is
libertarian, based on the greatest union democracy. To work
towards libertarian, class-struggle radical syndicalism, we
are establishing co-ordinated groups of workers,
irrespective of the union they belong to and we support the
unity of all workers in the workplace and throughout the
country.
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– Donato Romito, National Secretary, FdCA
Translated by Nestor McNab
The (FdCA) Federation of Anarchist Communists developed out of a progressive coming together of groups and federations of a regional nature which began back in the days of struggle in 1968 in Italy. This organizational project brings together class–struggle militants from the Italian anarchist communist tradition, and aims at developing a libertarian reference point for all those who acknowledge the necessity for organizational theory, tactics and objectives.
ITALY'S BASE UNIONS
CONFEDERAZIONE ITALIANA di BASE (C.I.B.) - UNICOBAS
[Base Confederation of Italy - UNICOBAS] Born in 1991 as the syndicalist wing of the schools-sector Cobas, the CIB is a libertarian union which has close links with the schools sectors of the CGT-Spain, the CNT-F, the French and Swiss SUD, with whom they are about to form the European Federation of Alternative Syndicalism (FESAL). It is part of the ILS/SIL. It is strongest in the schools sector where it has a fair number of members and supporters. It is also present in the university, health and civil service sectors. Its members number over 5,000, dotted all over the country but with their stronghold in Rome. The national secretary is an anarchist comrade.
CONFEDERAZIONE COBAS
[COBAS (Base Committee) Confederation] Came into existence as an organized union at the end of the 90s. Its strongest sector is schools, where is has several thousand members. Other sectors were acquired from already-existing Cobas in different categories of the civil service and local semi-state agencies. It has strong ties to Rifondazione Comunista and to the Social Forums, and is a very politicized union with a strong hegemonic tendency. It too is spread over the whole country with its stronghold in Rome. In 2001 it began a process to unite with the S.in-Cobas, which has slowed somewhat of late.
CONFEDERAZIONE UNITARIA di BASE (C.U.B.)
[Base Unitary Confederation] The CUB was born at the end of the 80s when a group of metalworkers left the CISL. It consists of a series of single-category unions, which are concentrated in the north in factories, the transport sector and schools. Its stronghold is Milan and it has about 10,000 members. In the mid-nineties it federated with the RdB. The national secretary of the CUB-Scuola (schools sector) is an anarchist comrade.
ORGANIZZAZIONE SINDACATI AUTONOMI e di BASE (Or.S.A
Cartel of professional base unions in the transport sector.
RAPPRESENTANZE di BASE (RdB)
[Base Representation] Historic autonomous union which has been active since the 80s in various sectors of the civil service, health and semi-state agencies where it has won itself a strong pool of members and a strong electorate. It is recognized as the most representative union, having negotiated national contracts in certain sectors. Strong in Rome. Widespread presence with around 15,000 members.
SINDACATO INTERCATEGORIALE COBAS (S.in-cobas)
[Inter-category Cobas Union] Originates in the mid-90s in a split from the SLAI-Cobas, led by Rifondazione Comunista. It is present in various sectors - factories, co-operatives, commerce, local government bodies, schools. It has close ties with Rifondazione and is strongest in the center and north of the country. It is in the process of uniting with the Cobas Confederation.
SINDACATO LAVORATORI AUTOGESTITO INTERCATEGORIALE (SLAI-Cobas)
[Self-managed, Inter-category Workers Union] Originally born in the early 90s as an attempt to introduce base committees (cobas) to factories and metalworkers and was successful in terms of numbers and election results. It has conducted some important legal battles for the defense of union democracy and against unfair dismissals. It is present in a few big industrial areas, like Turin and Naples.
UNIONE SINDACALE ITALIANA (USI-AIT)
Born in 1978 and inspired by the historic revolutionary syndicalist USI from the 1910's, this union's members are above all anarchist workers. In the mid-90s, during a period of major growth, it suffered a split which weakened it greatly. The USI accredited to the IWA has its nucleus in Ancona, where it publishes "Lotta di Classe" [Class Struggle]. It is strongest in the health sector and in the Post Office. The USI which left the IWA has its nucleus in Rome in the research sector and local semi-state bodies.
COORDINAMENTO NAZIONALE RSU
[National RSU Co-ordination] Originating in the late 90s, it tries to coordinate the various RSUs, with their strong presence of CGIL and some base union workers. It is often critical of the traditional unions and has played an important role in the drive for a general strike since autumn 2001.
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