ITALY Rank and file organize against austerity ITALIAN WORKERS have had enough of wage freezes and are no longer willing to accept the shilly-shallying of the union leaderships, who are busy managing the austerity. Strikes have been taking place since September in the transport sector and especially on the railways. (See back page for a report on the latest situation).
This article on the background to the growing militancy was first published in the paper of the French section of the Fourth International, Rouge, on November 25. ALEXANDRE LYS 6GE ORE DELAYS for passengers: chaos returns to the airports." No, that is not a headline from an Italian tabloid. It was on the front-page of l' Unita, the daily paper of the Italian Communist Party, over a report announcing a four-hour strike on November 16. Called by the three unions in the Italian state airline, Alitalia, and the airports, the walkout paralyzed transport in Italy.
Since the beginning of September, many industrial actions have disrupted air transport. They have been focused on getting a new three-year contract in which the main 6 issues are wages and the length of the working week. International Viewpoint • December 7, 1987
Air transport workers are the worst paid in the industry in Italy, and transportation itself lags behind other industries, such as engineering. A skilled airplane mechanic, with fifteen years seniority, earns about $1,000 a month for a forty-hour week.
The unions are calling for a monthly raise of about $300, along with a two and a half hours reduction in the work-week. The last contract dates back to 1981, but was not renewed when it legally expired. So the present one is two and a half years overdue, and real negotiations started only in June. Last year was marked by a series of struggles in sectors of the industry, in particular airplane maintenance, over "flexible" working hours and staffing.
In September, a mobilization of air transport workers started with a series of very well supported revolving strikes that put the Alitalia management and the government on the defensive. During this struggle, there was a very strong upsurge of rank and file militancy, with the setting up of rank and file committees in some sectors.
The authority of the trade-unions is in fact sharply disputed, despite a high level of unionization (55 per cent). There have been no elections to the enterprise council for five years. Bogged down in co-management, the unions have refused to organize them.
Self-organization of railworkers
Other workers very much in the news have been train drivers and more generally train crews. Here the struggle was launched by the ranks and has led to six strikes that brought out an average of 95 per cent of the workers concerned. The train drivers are also strongly unionized. But, facing the hesitations of the union leaderships, they have formed a united coordinating committee. They are threatening to call a new 48-hour general strike at the end of November.
The railway workers are also fighting over wages and working conditions. Subsequently, a new coordinating committee representing other categories in the train crews, such as conductors, was formed.
In any case, in rail, the rank and file committees, the COBAS, are continuing to apply pressure. Lightning strikes are organized by professional categories on a regional basis in this very decentralized country. One day, it may be the cleaners in Siena or the railworkers in Venice, another the conductors in Milan. In short, delays are multiplying on a rail network that already had a record number in ordinary times. Trains are shunted away from regions affected by stoppages.
Unlike France, Italian railworkers have a long experience of self-organization. The COBAS have existed for a very long time, having survived, like those in the engineering industry, since the Italian "Creeping May" of 1969. They also very often serve as local organizations for the three unions.
Finally, in education, after the strong mobilization in the spring against a contract signed by the ministry and the three unions, the fight led by the COBAS remains very substantial. Other strike mobilizations are already in the offing.
Today, after more than ten years of austerity accepted by the three main union confederations and all the parliamentary parties (from the Communists to the Social Democrats), workers' combativity is clearly reviving.
Distrust of the union bureaucracies
Italian workers are sick of having their wages frozen, especially when they have been regaled with stories about the virtues of Italian economic recovery, and they have not seen any benefits from this.
These initial struggles are also shaped by a distrust of the union bureaucracies, which are torn between their acceptance of austerity and the need to maintain their base among the workers. This is why struggles that were at first sectoral and won a lot of support have given rise to forms of selforganization and debates about the possibility of reforming the unions or the need for building new ones.
For the time being, the ruling coalition government, which includes the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Christian Democracy, is taking a tough line. It is threatening to push an anti-strike law through the Senate, providing for advance notice of strikes, during which time work stoppages would be illegal. Another bill would also ban walkouts on holidays and during vacations, as well as lightning strikes.
Finally, the government is threatening to use a law adopted under Mussolini against the railway stoppage projected for the end of November, making it possible to conscript the workers.
However, the government has been weakened by the repercussions of a recent referendum, in which nuclear energy was rejected, despite a campaign by the Christian Democrats. It has also been divided again over a finance law as a result of the drop in stock prices.
The three confederations called for a four-hour general strike against the finance law on November 25, impelled by the need to offer their base some perspectives. At the same time, they are trying to control it by proposing a "self-regulation" of strikes (even taking up certain provisions of the anti-strike law), which is to be decided on locally in the contract negotiations.
The revolutionary left is in the forefront of the fight. The teachers' COBAS, a conference of the railworkers' coordinating committees, of delegations of air transport workers, as well as of workers from other enterprises met on Sunday November 15 to issue a call for mobilizing. *