Ten years after the hot autumn,' Italy has once again been the scene of a powerful wave of struggles and demonstrations by workers, which shook the most important industrial centers of the country from the middle of June through the first week of July.
Even during the months preceding this upsurge, Italian workers had not been passive in face of employer and government attacks. During the month of May there were 25 million hours lost in strikes (compared with 11 million in May 1977). During the first five months of the current year official figures show 78 million hours were lost in strikes (as against 34 million in 1977).
A crucial factor in all this is the fact that national contracts for key industries (steel, chemical, textile, construction, etc.) have come up for renewal during this period. Furthermore, for once the fight over these contracts-expecially the one that will mobilize iron and steel, auto, and shipyard workers, who are under the same national contract and are organized in the same union-has taken on a political significance going beyond the scope of the contract demand themselves, as both the workers and employers recognize. A major class confrontation is now shaping up.
200,000 Steelworkers March in Rome
The struggles began six months ago. Workers in steel had already racked up between 100 and 150 hours on strike by early July, with wages lost amounting to as much as 300,000 lira (about two-thirds of a normal month's pay. It was after the elections, however, that the battles became more hard fought and more widespread.
It will suffice to recall a few of the most important events. On June 19 the CGTL, CISL, and UIL trade-union federationswhich despite their divisions of last year nonetheless achieved substantial unity in action-called for a four-hour general strike by industrial workers, in conjunction with government employees, teachers, and some of the transport workers.
On June 22 a huge national demonstration by steelworkers took place in Rome.
On July 4 there were three regional rallies by construction workers, which drew 50,000 participants in Milan, 50,000 in Rome, and 30,000 in Bari.
On July 6 it was the chemical workers' turn. Their march in Milan drew tens of thousands from all parts of the country.
The June 22 demonstration in Rome should be noted in particular. There were 200,000 workers marching-maybe even a little more. It was an extremely militant crowd. Even CGIL leader Lama [the main Communist Party labor leader]-well known for his moderate orientation-was obliged to sharpen the tone of his speech and lay out a perspective of hard-hitting class confrontation:
They say there's a right wind blowing in Europe. Well, in Italy that wind has hit and will keep hitting an insurmountable obstacle: the strength of the working class. Nobody's going to tame the fighting spirit of us workers. The working class has a hard core, harder than the hardest front the bosses can put up.
The workers, for their part, played a preeminent role in the demonstration. The slogans at the front of the march combined the general demands of the steelworkers together with those of feminists:
"We're the first to be fired, that's why we're the most fired up!"
"Work less, make love more!"
"Family, work, sexuality, we need to change this society!"
One group of chemical workers summed up the general mood in a slogan of their own, carried in the Milan march:
"The government had better know, if it takes another '69 we're ready!"
After the June 22 demonstration the mobilizations by steelworkers in particular became even more resolute and dynamic. The workers realized that they had to score a victory before the summer holidays, and therefore needed to really step on it to achieve their goals. This was concretized in the adoption of more varied methods of struggle which were at the same time more determined.
Strikes continued to occur almost daily, with a combination of rotating strikes limited in time (one or two hours) and more prolonged strikes that went beyond the time limits fixed at the outset (extending almost to the end of the working day). The tactic of holding up goods at the exit or entrance of a plant was applied more strictly and systematically. During the last week of June and the first week of July, for example, no car haulers left the FIAT Mirafiori plant, and not a single new truck was shipped from the SPA Stura plant, both in Turin.
Sometimes when strikes took place there would be marches, both inside and around the big plants. (Needless to say, the participation in strikes at smaller plants was also much higher than usual.) The mobilization thus reached down to the level of towns, with demonstrations, long marches, blockades of intersections and major streets and highways, occupations of train stations and even some airports.
For example, on July 4 the workers at the Lancia plant blocked the Turin-Milan and Turin-Aosta highways. The workers at FIAT, after demonstrating in front of the management of their plant, blocked off the international airport for more than an hour. When workers at the Venchi Unica plant were given layoff notices, they responded by paralyzing the Porta Susa railway station. In the Brescia region twenty-five roadblocks were organized paralyzing the Milan-Venice highway among others. A total of about 30,000 workers demonstrated in Brescia and the surrounding province. In Naples, the highway to Bari was blockaded by workers from Alfa Romeo, Alfa Sud, and Aeritalia. Roadblocks were also organized in Venice and in Ancona, where harbor traffic was also affected.
Similar demonstrations took place during the following days. On July 9, the FIAT workers went to the daily paper in Turin, La Stampa (owned by the same capitalists as the FIAT trust) to discuss with the journalists about the coverage of their struggles of that day. The dock workers of Livorno, meanwhile, showed their solidarity with the strikers by refusing to unload ships bringing FIAT vehicles from Spain and Brazil.
Meetings and assemblies of all kinds were held throughout all these mobiliza. tions, with a very active participation by trade-union cadres, delegates, and rankand-file workers. The pressure of the ranks became stronger and stronger, and often the framework of struggle set in advance by the unions or even by the assemblies themselves was thrown overboard in the course of the events.
In addition, the number of those "absent due to the strike" (that is, workers who called in sick when there was a strike on) was notably less than on other occasions. A Political Confrontation
One need not have a penchant for facile analogies to assert that the mood in the big Italian plants has returned to what it was in 1969. The CP organ L'Unità went so far as to write that the number of FIAT workers demonstrating in Turin was greater on July 6 than it was during the hot autumn. The main bourgeois daily, Corriere della Sera, wrote July 8 that "It is as if we have slipped ten years back into the past."
This new wave of struggles results from a combination of the persistent strength and combativity of the working class, together with the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to impose the economic goals it set itself over the past two years, or to assemble a leadership capable of making substantial headway toward political stabilization.
During the first months of this year, the employers and bourgeois political leaders preferred to stall, in the hope that the elections would produce a relationship of forces more favorable for them. The results of the June 2-3 elections-a setback for the party [the Communist workers main Party] once again nourished their illusion of being able to deal the working class a blow in a major social confrontation. Within the employers' organization (the Confindustria), the wing calling for a hard line toward the workers was strengthened in relation to those who leaned more toward a reasonable compromise that
"the sense of respon would reward sibility"-in other words the moderationthat trade-union leaders have begun to show, especially since 1977-78.
But the calculations of these bourgeois sectors were proven to be not very realistic, and in the final analysis even dangerous from their point of view. The fact that despite the decline of the CP there still exists no perspective of a stable government evidently weighed against the employers and favored the workers' demands.
It should be added that the trade-union leaderships are finding themselves forced to make a difficult choice. They are increasingly conscious of the fact that the employers aim to use them, to erode their bargaining power and deal them setbacks without making any important concessions in return.
The leadership of the FLM, the steelworkers federation, has long been the most sensitive to this situation. In fact it was they who took the initiative around the big June 22 demonstration, rejecting attempts by the national union confederations to postpone-if not cancel-the action. Lama in turn (who as we have seen could no longer escape the pressure from a very militant rank and file) decided not to go along with moves to call off the march.
In addition, the CP had been shaken by the first electoral defeat in its history, and was obliged to remain in opposition after the Christian Democrats refused to let it join a government of national unity. In this context the CP in recent weeks has not played as much of a restraining role as it did during the whole period when contract demands were being drawn up and adopted. The reaction of many militant workers in the CP to their party's electoral setback was "Well, now we've got to fight, to go out and win back through social struggles what we've lost."
In certain key plants the initiative of vanguard militants has contributed greatly to the radicalization of the struggle and to the use of the methods of mobilization described above. Some of these militants had been through the experience of a whole decade of struggles, while others were participating in such a confrontation for the first time.
As noted above, the present upsurge has taken on an eminently political dimension. It is seen as a major confrontation by the very large layers of workers who are involved in it. But since the start of the debate over contract demands, the stakes have become even clearer. They include a reduction of the workweek-seen both as a means of defense against superexploitation and as a way of fighting unemployment; the right to information and control by the trade unions over economic decisions, including capital investment; and wage raises.
The demands adopted by the FLM were far from being satisfactory. They were adopted over the objections of a minority that was underrepresented in the December national assembly, but which is nonetheless firmly based in the plants. The demands include a shorter workweek only in certain sectors, longer in some than in others, and undermined in the South by the possible abolition of free Saturdays; the right to certain information about decisions in the plants, but far from real workers' control; and limited wage demands, varying up to a maximum of 30,000 lira [US$36], and—what is particularly serious-breaking with the practice imposed since 1969 of equal raises for all.)
At the same time, the FLM platform of demands includes the call for cutting the workweek in steel to thirty-six hours (beginning in 1980), as well as for wage raises that would violate the austerity schemes of the government and the employers.
In other words, we are not talking about a purely defensive battle. The working class, at any rate, does not see it that way. It sees it and will carry it through as a battle to win new concessions, limited though they may be. This is the kind of mood that explains the extraordinary dy. namic of the mobilizations and the aggressiveness of large layers of workers.
It is quite possible that the results of the contract struggles may turn out to be rather disappointing, and that the workers will accept settlements that represent a retreat from their original demands. This is especially so given the extreme difficulty of continuing to fight indefinitely, with the perspective of having to start all over from scratch. A complete victory in such a confrontation could only be won by a generalization of the struggles, opening the way for a general strike with occupations of the big plants.
This is precisely what the leaderships of the trade unions and the traditional workers parties are striving to avoid right now. In the given context, they probably will manage to avoid it, even if new contracts are not signed right away. On July 9, an initial settlement was reached between the FLM and the management of state enterprises (which include among others a large part of the steel industry, as well as Alfa Romeo). It is a settlement that falls short of the original demands, and fails to satisfy the demands of the workers in struggle.
One notable feature is its provision for a reduction of working time by means of five extra days off, which will restore some of the seven holidays eliminated two years ago. The extra five days off will go into effect starting July 1, 1981, in auto, steel, and other important sectors. The 6 x 6 system (six working days of six hours each) will eventually be introduced in the South.
On the other hand, an agreement on workforce mobility had already been reached in May. For the employers it stipulates their right to lay off on technical unemployment workers who refuse to take a new job within a radius of 50 kilometers. For the workers, it provides that the system of automatic layoff after two years on technical unemployment will be eliminated.
As we have seen, these are limited settlements, having very little to do with real needs. Nevertheless, the workers have not only maintained their essential positions but have even assured themselves some improvements. The employers have not been able to attain their objective of inflicting a serious blow to the working class, forcing it to give up an important part of the ground it has gained in the big struggles since 1969.
At a time when dark clouds of a new recession are appearing on the horizon, this is an added reason for them to fear that the working class might give further proof of its social and political power and enhanced fighting potential.
2. A government program for cushioning the effects of layoffs resulting from technological changes in industry.—IP/I
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Notes
1. The autumn of 1969, which marked the beginning of the new radicalization in Italy. —IP/I