The third workers' conference of Trot- Skyist organizations - including sections of the Fourth International as well as sympathizing groups-took place March 27-28 in Turin. The first conference was also held in Turin November 1969, and the second in Liege in July 1970.
More than 100 activists attended, including blue- and white-collar workers, as well as trade-union members and leaders. Most of the participants were young militants. Among the most significant delegations were those from the Renault and Rhone-Poulenc factories in France; from FIAT, and from Nebiolo and other foundries in Italy; from Cockerill-Ougree and F.N. Herstal in Belgium; from Standard Electric Lorenz in Germany; and the Beiwal-Arbed Acieries in Luxemburg.
The Swiss delegation was composed of comrades who played a role in the recent strikes in French-speaking Switzerland, strikes which marked a turning point in the political struggle in that country.
The Italian delegation, the most numerous, included activists from about fifteen cities.
After the presiding committee was elected and the agenda proposed by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International was adopted, a worker from Renault, a member of the Ligue Communiste [Communist League- the French section of the Fourth Internationall, reported on the situation and perspectives in the automotive industry. He stressed the importance of this sector (in which more than a million European workers are employed and which produces 45 percent of the world's cars and trucks).
This industry is experiencing quite a few difficulties at the present time. A decline in the rate of profit has developed as a result of various factors (an increase in the price of steel involving a redistribution of surplus value within the big capitalist groups, wage rises forced by great workers'
struggles, and the spread of the subcontracting system, which entails a rise in the cost price). The danger exists, moreover, of a progressive saturation of the market. All these factors, especially in the event of a general recession in Europe, will inevitably have repercussions on the level of employment.
In order to cope with their difficulties, the capitalists have resorted, and will continue to resort, to the classical measures — layotts, speedups, price increases. Thus, the workers will have to counterattack on the same ground. They will have to struggle against layoffs by raising, especially in the most critical situations, the slogan of a sliding scale of hours. Price rises must be fought by imposing a sliding scale of wages applied retroactively and fixed on a basis that can guarantee the workers against any erosion of their standard of living. A struggle must be waged for workers' control over the speed of assembly lines and the size of crews. At the same time, the fight for higher wages must be continued, with agitation centering on the demand for equal pay increases for all, in order to strike at the job-classification system imposed by the bosses.
In the discussion that followed, a worker from FIAT in Turin drew a balance sheet of the experience with the Delegates Council in the big automotive trust, pointing out that the trade-union bureaucrats have succeeded in draining away the content of this body and in paralyzing it in prac-
The Turin comrade outlined the detice.
mands that the revolutionary worker-activists are proposing in their alternative platform for the new struggles building up - immediately raising all workers to pay-category No. 2, equalizing piece-work premiums for all and including these in the base pay, and inspection by workers' delegates of sanitary conditions in the shops.
A metalworker from Bari expressed the view that the causes of the present difficulties in the automotive industry were stepped-up international competition, the wage rises won by the workers, and the underutilization of equipment.
A comrade from
Nebiolo in Turin talked about a recent struggle in his plant.
The report on the steel industry, which came second on the agenda, was given by a comrade from Liege. She highlighted the three main characteristics of the present situation in this sector — the introduction of new equipment involving a danger of excess productive capacity, more and more advanced rationalization, resulting in a tendency toward a drop in the number of workers employed and increased concentration.
In the second part of her report, the Liege comrade discussed the most significant strikes that have occurred in the recent period in Belgium, placing her main stress on the Sidmar and Cockerill- Ougree experiences.
The last struggle at Cockerill was particularly significant because it developed in spite of the open opposition of the union federation, on the basis of powerful pressure from below. Finally, the comrade drew attention to the experiments in workers' control carried out in the big Liege steel plant. Workers' control has been applied to the composition of the work crews and assembly-line rates, even involving a certain measure of control over hiring and a right of veto over firings.
At the Thomas foundry in particular the workers have endeavored to exercise supervision over stockpiling and inventories, and there have even been attempts to impose supervision over investments and the types of new equipment to be adopted.
An Italian comrade from Genoa took up the struggles, which were centered around opposition to the system of job classification, waged last year by
• the workers of the Italian steel trust Italsider. Despite the extended period of struggles and considerable wage losses from strikes, new conflicts have shaped up quite recently, particularly in Genoa, over the question of the makeup of work crews.
The third report-on workers' control and the problem of transitional demands — was given by Antonio Moscato, a member of the Political Bureau of the Italian section of the Fourth International. He made an extensive analysis of the experiences of the workers' upsurge in Italy, with special reference to the important lessons of the birth, development and present crisis of the workers' councils. (A written synopsis was distributed in advance to the participants.)
In fact, the reporter stressed, not only did forms of workers' control appear (notably over assembly-line tempos and work crews) along with embryonic forms of dual power in some plants, but, with the workers' councils that arose in the first period, organizational instruments of control developed. The upsurge in Italy that followed the great struggles in the autumn of 1969 has, however, been marked in the current stage by the need for finding general political solutions. Lacking these, the movement was destined to become dispersed, and, in the last analysis, to mark time, despite the continuing combativity of the workers and the power of the struggles developing without letup in specific industries or localities.
The reformist leaderships of the traditional parties and unions have understood this need. They have tried, in the context of their general outlook, to meet it by launching a campaign for reforms designed essentially to put pressure on the center-left government. Given their simplistic political ideas and their total lack of understanding of the question of a transitional program, the ultraleft groups have found themselves in difficulties.
As for us, we have made and must continue to make an effort to fill this void by developing a program of transitional demands encompassing not only the question of a sliding scale of hours and workers' control but housing, the environment, taxation, medical assistance, etc. Documents have already been drawn up and are being published in Bandiera
Rossa, the organ of the Italian section.
After a contribution to the discussion by a Belgian comrade, Paul Doyen, who summarized the Armco-Pittsburgh experience, a comrade from the Ligue Marxiste Revolutionnaire
(Revolutionary Marxist
League, the Swiss section of the Fourth International] took the floor to discuss the recent strikes in Geneva, Yverdon, centers in French-speaking and other Switzerland.
These strikes mark an important turn in the class struggle in Switzerland, inasmuch as they have opened an important breach in the class-collaborationist system that the bourgeoisie and the reformist bureaucracy had succeeded in imposing on the proletariat for decades. In these struggles, which were still going on at the time of the conference, a prominent role was played by Spanish and Italian emigre workers, but the Swiss workers participated with the same militancy. As in other European countries, the workers in Geneva and Yverdon elected strike committees which had to continually account for their work. The trade-union bureaucracy, completely outflanked, tried to defend itself by all sorts of maneuvers (from chauvinism to ultraleftism ).
A comrade from the GIM [Gruppe Internationale
Marxisten - International
Marxist Group, the German section of the Fourth International] summed up the experience of the "wildcat" strikes that have shaken Germany, pointing out especially the divisions within the trade-union bureaucracy that have considerably facilitated the spontaneous upsurge of struggles.
The German Trotskyist organization succeeded in developing a platform for intervening in these struggles on a national level. The response was favorable. The principal demands that must be raised in the present stage are equal pay boosts for all, a sliding scale of wages, and workers' democracy in the unions. In addition, the German Trotskyists are active among apprentices, a group constituting an extremely important area of work.
Ross Dowson, a leader of the Canadian Trotskyist movement and member of the leadership of the Fourth International, spoke on the struggles of the British workers, in particular the great mobilizations against the antilabor bill presented by the Conservative government.
The final report, given by Jean Metais, a member of the Political Bureau of the Ligue Communiste, dealt with the participation of revolutionary Marxists in workers' struggles and the construction of Trotskyist nuclei in the plants. First of all, Comrade Metais noted that the present political context is much more favorable for revolutionists than ever in the past. He indicated three problems that all sections have to solve in a precise way at a certain stage in their development: (1) the problem of relations with the most radicalized strata of the working class, which are very combative but have insufficient political education (it is particularly important to prevent these layers from isolating themselves from the rest of the class); (2) the problem of our attitude toward the traditional organizations, in particular the trade unions (in opposition to all ultraleftist deviations, we must reaffirm the positive role played by the unions and at the same time fight to break the hegemony of the reformists over the union movement); (3) the problem of utilizing the forces that we win in the student movement to bolster our inin workers' struggles and in volvement the plants.
Comrade Pellegrini (Italy) stressed the need for developing links with the workers who hold key positions in the plants. He pointed out that we can do this if we do not limit ourselves to political campaigns but are capable of leading real struggles at all levels. On the other hand, we must utilize all instruments that exist or may arise, including rank-and-file committees and councils of delegates, and not just the unions.
A comrade from the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire [Revolutionary Communist League] of Luxembourg spoke about the educational problems facing his organization as a result of recruiting young workers.
The LCR is striving to develop activities in industry both intensively (intervening in shops where they have comrades or contacts) as well as extensively (general propaganda work, distributing leaflets in front of factories).
Livio Maitan, a member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, summed up the conclusions briefly. The conference, he said, had permitted a turther exchange of experiences, which was all the more useful since the great majority of the comrades present had not participated in the preceding meetings. We he said, able to see that we conwere, curred in our analysis of the situation of European capitalism at this stage and of the tendencies shaping up for the near and relatively near future. We noted that essentially the same tendencies are operating throughout capitalist Europe as a whole and that the criteria of our work are becoming more and more the same (the emphasis need no longer be put on the peculiarities of each situation).
We must, he continued, again consider the question of studying our various experiences more thoroughly. There are still serious insufficiencies in this area. Secondly, we must prepare smaller meetings where it would be easier to discuss certain organizational and political aspects of our work more deeply. We must also consider the question of taking steps to coordinate our political and propaganda work. Finally, in a broader perspective, we must take up the problem of initiating united struggles and demonstrations of workers from different European countries.