A-Infos (en) Italy: FdCA Labour Commission statement

The FdCA Labour Commission met in Cremona on 8 November 2008, at the CSA 
Kavarna, Via Maffi, Il Cascinetto. The meeting saw the participation of workers 
and union activists from the regions of Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Marches and 
e-mail contributions from Liguria, Marches and Tuscany. The following document 
was passed by the Commission. ---- We're not paying for your crisis!
Widen the conflict, link up the struggles, on to the General Strike!
The crisis in world finance is creating new negative records every day, while 
the governments repeatedly insist that we must have trust in them, that it's not 
over yet, that it will all work out for the best in the end. In the meantime, 
States are financing banks to save them from collapse and financing businesses 
without any guarantees on jobs and wages.

This financial crisis has been coming for a long time. It came as a result of a 
market without any rules, completely in the hands of the speculators, and as a 
result of the absence of controls in the banking sector, the consequence of 
neo-liberalism on a world-wide scale. The policies of low wages and the defeat 
of the workers' movement have reduced the goods and services market's capacity 
to expand and the financial crisis has become a crisis for the proletariat who 
has to pay for this economic situation by being reduced to poverty. The middle 
class continues to shrink, getting poorer and poorer, while the rich continue to 
get richer. In this disastrous panorama, of all the so-called developed 
countries, Italy is the one where inequality is felt at its worst and the fall 
into poverty is being felt the strongest. The country is in a full-scale crisis, 
both financial and real, but the Italian government continues to repeat that our 
economy is strong and
  healthy. However, there is no denying we have entered a violent phase of 
recession and many companies are closing. The Budget (passed only thanks to it 
being tied to a vote of confidence) is full of cuts for healthcare, schools, 
universities and government departments, it introduces new measures for 
increasing flexibility in the jobs market, and it imposes a particularly low 
rated of planned inflation.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a constant shift of wealth from wages to 
returns and profits, with the trend of net wages running lower than inflation - 
without re-distributing the wealth produced (GDP) and with a growing relative 
impoverishment of workers, which translates into an absolute impoverishment of 
the whole of society.

Thus, inequality of income has grown and there has been a worsening in working 
conditions, particularly for the least well protected in the labour market: 
women, who continue to be denied parity of access to work, wages and full-time 
employment; the young, the over-50s, migrants, large parts of Southern Italy but 
also some areas in the country's richest regions are feeling the crunch. 
Casualisation and wage poverty spell trouble for the historical conquests of 
Italy's labour movement. Now more than ever, it is important to bring up the 
question of democracy and rights, both in the workplace and elsewhere. 
Casualisation exemplifies the neo-liberal social model in the age of 
globalisation. It is the key to the social and existential unease of the young, 
of the old and of women.

The widespread casualisation of the world of labour goes hand in hand with the 
equally widespread social casualisation as foreseen in pro-Confindustria 
Minister Sacconi's Green Paper. It aims to introduce a system of welfare closely 
linked to the principle of subsidiarity and to raise the pension age, with the 
collaboration of the unions who are to be involved (by means of increasing use 
of bilateral structures) in individualising work contracts, in encouraging 
employees to become shareholders in their companies, in preventing and punishing 
conflict, limiting the right to strike in a climate of repression and company 
fascism that is already under way. This path converges fully with the review of 
bargaining imposed by the employers' federation Confindustria, and has already 
been accepted by the CISL and the UIL, together with the UGL [1].

Thus, the financial crisis is being taken advantage of in order to drive ahead 
with policies to deregulate workers' rights and protection, to increase the 
already negative effects of public service privatisations, and to push the 
working class into a state of economic and occupational subjection. The strikes 
and the composite movement of teachers, students and parent workers that has 
been growing since 15th September, the spontaneous mobilizations of factory 
workers and Alitalia employees, all clearly indicate that the direction we 
should be taking is one whereby we can free ourselves from the deadly embrace of 
union submission to the government and Confindustria, where we reject 
"solutions" such as de-taxing overtime and individual productivity premiums, 
where we can stop company closures from being used as a bargaining chip in order 
to casualise every worker in Italy or to withhold work visas for our new citizens.

We need to set out on the opposite path, a path that has already been indicated 
by the strikes of the grassroots unions and the school and university movement 
in October. It seems that the CGIL may also choose this path, by necessity. 
Within the federation there are strong signs of a will to break with the 
previously-held line, that may force the union bureaucracy to come to terms with 
the crisis, despite its willingness to see partnership as a solution. The 
involvement in the schools mobilizations, the support for the anti-mobility 
factory demonstrations, the refusal to sign the national deal for 
commercial-sector workers, their reluctance to subscribe to the norms on 
bargaining imposed by Confindustria, all these are signs of a re-discovered 
autonomy (it's never too late!), making the 12th December strike by the 
metalworkers of the FIOM an appointment to dedicate all our energies on in order 
to win back some trust in a more conflictual, participatory
  form of syndicalism.

The 12th December, a date which is already emblematic being the anniversary of 
the Piazza Fontana massacre 39 years ago, must become a day of struggle, 
mobilization and strikes involving every category, every sector, every trade 
union that opposes the costs of the crisis and the government's measures, every 
sort of alternative, grassroots association, self-managed social centre, 
political organizations on the communist left and the anarchist movement, all 
coming together in a demonstration of solidarity between workers, be they in 
permanent employment or casual, Italian or new citizens, a demonstration of 
class unity and direct democracy. A trade union, social, political and 
class-struggle General Strike that can show enough strength to demand successfully:

* repeal of Law 133/08 [2] and its destructive applications in the world of 
labour and on welfare;

* the safeguarding and re-distribution of public resources in favour of the 
social state, of military spending cuts and the withdrawal of Italy from all the 
fictitious peace missions;

* wage support and pension support by means of recovering excess income tax 
(fiscal draining), the reduction of the tax burden on pay, wage increases 
detached from productivity, wage increases at Euribor rates (+1%!!);

* the safeguarding of jobs for all workers, on long-term or short-term 
contracts, migrants and Italians, re-financing and use of the Integrated 
Earnings Fund [3] and unemployment benefit at 100% without time limits;


* grassroots control over bargaining and vigilance against company fascism be 
means of workplace assembly bodies.

The FdCA supports the FIOM's 12th December strike and invites other 
organizations from the same category, the CGIL confederation and its trades 
councils, the grassroots syndicalist confederations and single-category unions 
to call for a general strike on the same day and start out on a new course of 
conflict and popular participation for greater social equality and greater freedom.

Labour Commission
FEDERAZIONE DEI COMUNISTI ANARCHICI

Cremona, 8 November 2008

Notes:
1. General Labour Union, a federation closely linked to the right-wing Alleanza 
Nazionale party.
2. The "Gelmini" education reform.
3. The Cassa Integrazione Guadagni (CIG) is a fund where the State covers part 
of a worker's wages while the worker is temporarily laid off.

http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen


From: Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici <internazionale@fdca.it>
_________________________________________
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