There is growing international support for Liverpool's striking dock workers (see IV#276). Closer to home, Doris McNally explains the role of Women on the Waterfront (WOW), which organises the wives and
be better for both if le lotte the treasuries were separated. The South could become the Taiwan of the Mediterranean. An agreement could certainly be made between these two treasuries, through a true federalism, with very rigid rules."
The fundamental orientation of the new government toward the economy will not be qualitatively different from that of the Amato, Ciampi and Dini governments.& There will be no weakening on the unemployment front, and the center-left government will have to take quite drastic, anti-popular measures to resolve the budget deficit and, more generally, the state debt problem, in the spirit of Maastricht. The PRC faces a difficult choice
There is considerable consensus among PRC leaders, even if sometimes, for example over the stand-down agreement, there are negative votes and abstentions in the national political committee. This situation has not changed since April 21; the decision to allow the formation of the Prodi government without making any agreements or seeking any medium or long term accord has been confirmed. Now, the party's attitude will be decided based on what the government proposes to parliament and is able to carry out.
All this means the PRC risks entering a stormy period. Our electoral campaign centered on the 35 hour week without loss of pay, the reintroduction of a sliding wage scale adjusted for inflation, a radical fiscal reform, the reestablishment of proportional representation, opposition to presidentialist solutions, the right to vote for immigrants, opposition to Maastricht and NATO and a severe critique of the orientation of the trade union federations. In brief, we put forward an alternative project qualitatively different from that of the PDS and Olive Tree.
The problem now is that, if we place ourselves in opposition to the new government from the start, the center-left will not have a majority and will be obliged to seek alliances on its right, paying quite a high price.
This means that the PRC might appear as the gravedigger of a centre-left government which had proposed renovation and protection (however illusory). We might be held responsible by the workers for a new crisis, and one with an uncontrollable dyn-
Italy
* amic. We risk compromising our real possibilities for future growth. And fighting for hegemony in the popular movement under more difficult conditions than until now.
If we were only a very small formation, we could legitimately choose the terrain of propaganda, reaffirm our identity, and bet on positive medium and long term effects. But this is impossible for a party that now has a large presence in parliament, and, despite its weaknesses and contradictions, is percieved by radicalized sectors of Italian society as representing their interests and demands. We must take care to accompany the experience of layers of workers who still have confidence in other parties, especially the PDS. We must prove ourselves capable of winning or helping to win partial conquests, however modest..
The PRC must strive to put forward