the July 31 agreement and other government measures and violently confronted the union speakers.
After years of silence imposed by a union bureaucracy that has prevented them from making their own choices, workers are "using the street" and outflanking the leaders of the CGIL, CIS and UIL.
The mass rallies which follow the demonstrations have been getting shorter and shorter - not exceeding five minutes - and union leaders have now been forced to give their speeches behind plastic shields provided by the police to protect them from barrages of vegatables.
In Rome as elsewhere, union leaders have stood on platforms placed 300 metres away from the crowds - protected by 2,500 members of the security service brought in as reinforcements from
GIGI MALABARBA - October T HE large and militant September 12 national demonstration against the government sounded the alarm for the union leaderships. The demonstration was organized by the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) and demanded the suspension of the July 31 agreement between union leaders and the government abolishing the indexation of wages. The social crisis is rapidly deepening, and the unions could find themselves in serious trouble unless they quickly try to regain the initiative. On September 17 the government adopted — perhaps sooner than expected — new legislation which was even more draconian, reducing pensions and dramatically cutting back the national health care reimbursement system. At the same time, the Italian lira was devalued — a measure which will lead to significant price increases.
Most union leaders could only stammer in response, while a few leaders of the largest union confederation, the General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) started to talk about the need to organize a fightback. On the other hand, the government decrees were enough to provoke a wave of strikes on the morning of September 18. Workers in about one hundred factories went on strike particularly in the north, in Brescia and Milan. They blocked railway lines and motorways, hoping in this way to call attention to and popularize their struggle given the lack of initiative from the CGIL, the Confederation of Free Unions (CISL — tied to the Christian democrats) and the Italian Labour Union (UIL — tied to the social
4, 1992. democrats).
The initiative taken by the factory councils of Sesto San Giovanni, in the industrial core of Milan, is significant. They telephoned all the striking workers to have them assemble in front of the regional union headquarters. After one hour of strong pressure from workers outside the building demanding a general strike, the regional secretaries emerged and called a general strike for the Lombardy region - using the megaphone of the Union rank and file committee (COBAS — a self-organizing body formed in opposition to CGIL, CISL and UIL) of Ansaldo. At the same time, the union leaders apologized to the workers for not having the authority to make a similar call on the national level At this point, the national unions tried to regain control of the movement by calling regional general strikes in the whole country, spread out over two weeks, including a national demonstration of retirees on September 26 and a public sector general strike on October 2.
### Popular discontent
But the union leaderships have underestimated the extent of popular discontent across the country - more than one million workers have joined the various demonstrations which descend upon the city squares, chanting their demands in unison and filling the mass media with headlines announcing "the workers' revolt" From the Alps to Sicily, the huge crowds of demonstrators called for a national general strike, the withdrawal of vice brought in as reinforcements from outside the capital, as well as 1,000 police in civilian clothes, and a squadron of mounted police which advanced against oppositionists who did not want to disperse, causing panic and several injuries.
Union leaders are now invoking the spectre of terrorism, in an attempt to temper the rapid growth of the movement, to divide it, and to gain some time before calling for a general strike - which, according to them, can happen without the workers having to leave their place of work, and with the sole goal of winning small changes to a package of economic measures they essentially support.
In the meantime, there have been two significant developments. At PIAT -where, after twelve years of workers defeats, the strikes at the Mirafiori factory have been total - the management has explicitly demanded that the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS - formerly the Communist Party of Italy) enter into the government. Success for Lombard League
And the September 28 provincial elections in Mantua in Lombardy, produced a major defeat for government parties already discredited by scandals. While the left opposition held its ground, the Lombard League along with its allies made huge gains, with 40% of the votes.
All the polls predict that hereafter one-third of the northern Italian electorate will give their support to the Leagues. The government, through a decree and with the support of the PDS, has decided to postpone the elections that were scheduled to take place in the other two provinces of Lombardy until the spring of 1993.
While hiding their backing for the deding of wage indexation, the eagues 1 1
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BLA BLA BLA they had, they would have had a greater BLA impact. They have BLA also missed the opportunity to decisively take the leadership of the struggle -by going further than their (justified) decision to join the CGIL opposition after the leadership's signature of the July 31 agreement was confirmed at the national leadership committee meeting of September 2 and 3.
The Alfa-Romeo COBAS, which is outside the CGIL, CISL and UlL, launched a public debate with the supporters of Essere Sindacato —particularly with its national spokesperson Fausto Bertinotti and the Brescia delegation, proponents of the convocation of a national assembly of factory councils.
The motivations for this proposal oscillate between the assembly being an organ of self-organization and being a vehicle for exerting internal pressures on the union leaderships.
The COBAS and what can be called the rank-and-file left of the minority are trying to start up a common oppositional front inside and outside the CGIL - to support the general strike and to call for a referendum on the repeal of present legislation which gives the CGIL, CISI and UIL complete control over negotiations. This latter proposal was made by Bertinotti himself, arguing that this monopoly should be returned to councils of delegates elected by the workers.
The evolution of the situation - given that the bourgeoisie cannot reduce the scope of its attacks - leaves the door open to a possible radicalization. A new capitulation by the bureaucracy - a "July 31 on the welfare state" — after the elimination of indexation and the widening of the governmental majority to include the PDS, could provoke a split in the CGIL.
Combatting demoralization
If the split sees the emergence of rank-and-file self-organization structures, this split could quickly give birth to a mass class-struggle union - thereby preventing the demoralized retreat the new defeats would produce for thousands of activists with years of experience in struggle.
Only a definitive break with the bureaucratic apparatuses of the CGIL, sion" by the North has received some mass support. All social layers are sympathetic to the Leagues' call to refuse payment of the residential tax, which had to be paid by September 30.
In the North, social protest is for the moment expressing itself in support for a right-wing political force, the only one which seems capable of bringing down the postwar regime. No clear demand for a political alternative has been heard even at workers' meetings; workers are limiting themselves to calling for an end to the government offensive at all costs.
Strike at Alfa Romeo
The first strike broke out on September 4 at Alfa-Romeo in Arese, on the initiative of the COBAS and rank-and-file delegates. In this factory, workers' self-organization is the most advanced in Italy. This action was an important sign of opposition to the July 31 agreement — in spite of the near-total press blackout.
The action at Alfa-Romeo produced an inter-union coordination body bringing together ten other factories in Milan, Rome and Naples to "rebuild a workers union from below", with unitary teams of delegates representing each factory -elected and subject to recall, and without union fulltimers.
But the most important phenomenon to date is the existence of several thousand delegates — particularly in the steel and engineering industries - who see themselves as part of the CGIL minority tendency Essere Sindacato ("Being a Unionist") which has the majority in Brescia province — the third biggest industrial region in the country - and in certain other regions.
This tendency retains a high capacity for mobilizing its supporters and offers all the union rights of which the COBAS are deprived. It attempts to put pressure on and influence the union leaderships. However, a discussion has begun in its ranks about the need to impose rules of 12 cracy — and to oblige the leaderships of rank-and-file democracy on the bureauthe CGIL, CISL and UIL to consult workers and to be held to specific mandates during negotiations.
Minority currents in industry — partly originating in a leftward split in the CISL in alliance with small independent public sector and service sector unions - have founded the United Rank and File Confederation (CUB — not to be confused with the COBAS in industry, which are not part of the CUB).
The CUB have made propaganda with the aim of capitalizing on the discontent in traditional sectors - but they risk splintering the movement now being built. Indeed, they have remained outside this movement and organize their own separate activities.
The most important debate is now going on inside Essere Sindacato, which won 15% of the delegates - representing 200,000 members - at the 1991 CGIL congress. It is probable that their proposals enjoy majority support in the working class. Its leading members, who belong to the left of the PDS and the PRC, constitute the only union leadership that can provide a nationwide alternative. Absence of union democracy
But the necessary conditions for overturning the relationship of forces in CGIL do not exist, given the total absence of democratic structures. This tendency still has trouble in addressing the issue of making a left split from the CGIL. Essere Sindacato has not translated its idea of a "refoundation at the base" of a new democratic union into practice — although such an undertaking would, for example, chime in with the proposals from the Alfa-Romeo COBAS.
Despite the different context, this situation shares common features with the struggle waged in the Communist Party, before the split of January 1991 — to "refound inside" or to "refound outside".
Pressures from the leading groups of the CGIL "centre" and the demands of the political situation - for unity against the dangers of an authoritarian turn —
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CISL and UIL would give reason to hope for a reversal of fortunes for the workers movement - to continue along the path charted out during the birth and development of this enormous social movement, represented on the political scene by the birth of the PRC
The uncertainties and contradictions of Essere Sindacato appeared in full view during its national meeting in Sesto San Giovanni on October 3. One thousand delegates were in attendance, in spite of CGIL secretary general Bruno Trentin's call not to organize separate activities. But a few important leaders of the minority did not attend this meeting.
In spite of the programmatic and political limitations of the PRC, workers have placed their hopes in this party, hoping that it will become a useful instrument and a point of reference for the reorganization of the left.
This gives the PRC a tremendous responsibility. Aside from the demonstration of September 12, it has not been able to take up the tasks of leadership demanded by such a movement — a movement, moreover, whose birth it hoped for at the end of its first national meeting.
Some of its most representative union members even prevented the more radical orientation of Fausto Bertinotti (still in the PDS) from carrying the day. This helped ruin an opportunity to make a qualitative jump in the building of an alternative leadership of the movement. It can be attributed to a certain approach to the balance of forces in the PDS leadership, an approach which these PRC members picked up during their many years in the PCI: they are looking to establish privileged relations with the "communist sector" of the PDS, even though it grows increasingly weak and discredited.
These union members have an orientation which is more moderate than that of PRC Secretary General Sergio Gavarini. They publicly denounced him because of his refusal to explicitly rule out the possibility of a split in the CGIL.
Realignments in prospect at union congress
One shouldn't exclude the possibility of new internal re-alignments occurring in the lead up to the next congress, to be held sometime in mid-1993. These re-alignments would upset the traditional divisions between the two currents of the exPCI and those originating in the New Left.
To cite an example, PRC union leaders originating from the far left Proletarian Democracy (DP) have been heckled — alongside union bureaucrats — by militants from the self-same PRC who were formerly members of the PCI. *
ITALY Union militants meet WE PUBLISH below extracts of the draft resolution put to the leadership meeting of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) on September 2-4, 1992, by the Essere Sindacato minority tendency. This resolution was defeated. AT its September 2-4 meeting in Ariccia, the leadership committee of the CGIL drew a negative balance sheet of the July 31 agreement. This morning's decision to retroactively increase the discount rate provides further proof that the agreement is not even capable of achieving the goals it set for itself [...)]
The leadership committee therefore feels that it should withdraw its signature from the July 31 agreement, and renegotiate it based on those issues which are and have been the focus of a broad consultation and mobilization of the rank-and-file:
• The re-instatement of an automatic mechanism of indexation for salaries and pensions...
• The re-instatement of the option to negotiate based on regions and the workplaces; for the organization and re-launching of struggles for the renewal of public sector contracts which expired years ago.
(.-) We must re-build the mobilization - up to the organization of a general strike - around the following points:
• For a policy defending and expanding employment, through an immediate nationwide negotiation to deal with the devastating effects of the restructuring presently underway - for a policy which reforms current laws restricting mobility and moves towards legislation reducing the working week. A real employment policy must be oriented in the direction of expanding the country's productive base, and against the privatization of key public sector enterprises.
The priority objective of such a policy must be the development of the South.
* For a fiscal policy based on equality — beginning with the reinstatement of fiscal control - with the aim of punishing tax evasion for the first time, beginning with a system of enforcement which prevents investors from paying less than workers. In this framework, the tax increases on workers must be eliminated and the system of residential taxes must be radically overhauled...
* For a policy defending and extending the welfare state, with priority given to the system of health care and prevention. The public character of the national health service must be preserved by struggling against waste and inefficiency - which means opposing privatization, the drop in reimbursement and the increase in the costs of medical assistance.
The system of indexing pensions must be maintained. We must reject increases in the retirement age and in the number of required years of work (from 15 to 20 years) - measures which strike particularly hard at women and workers in difficult circumstances, and reduce the real value of pensions.
It is also unacceptable that the right to a minimum amount of welfare be conditioned by the spouse's income.
It is based on these priority concerns that the CGIL - while not underestimating the objective difficulties of the current economic situation, and while seeking a common front with the CISL and UIL [other union confederations] — can rebuild a genuine autonomy in which links with its real social base can be democratically established, and its activists' confidence can be restored.
(From the September 11 edition of Notiziario Comunista, publication of the Communist Refoundation Party - PRC). *
12 October 26, 1992 # 237 International Viewpoint