A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #42 - Popular initiative law or class struggle, that is the question - Cristiano Valente (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A widespread battle for wage increases and a strong demand for a 
reduction in working hours is the only necessary and central battle the 
labor movement must win to change and reverse the balance of power 
between employers, the government, and the working masses. The largest 
trade union, the CGIL, continues to lack a strategy commensurate with 
the ongoing class struggle. After the general strike against the 
government's budget, called alone on December 12th, no other protest 
initiative has been implemented or defined for the continuation of a 
labor and political battle.
The difficulties of participation and mobilization, which had been 
highlighted in previous internal discussions within the organization, 
and the further tearing of the already tattered solidarity fabric of the 
workers' movement due to the mistaken choice not to converge, after the 
first general and united strike of October 3rd, with the strike called 
by the grassroots unions on November 28th, equally and specularly guilty 
of sectarianism and a poor understanding of the real needs of the 
moment, were not even minimally taken into consideration. The same 
necessary and necessary discussion on the defeat of last June's labor 
referendums and the defeat of the metalworkers' contract, compared to 
the albeit not unrealistic unitary proposals, the setback on public 
sector workers' contracts that have not been signed, but which precisely 
for this reason should require a virtually absent union political 
strategy for their reopening and questioning, was, in the debate of the 
CGIL General Assembly on January 26 and 27, downgraded to a discussion 
of internal organizational procedures, particularly for the distribution 
of the financial resources available to the Chambers of Labor and the 
various trade union bodies, and the start of a signature drive for the 
launch of a popular initiative law on healthcare was formally launched.
Once again, the role and function of a resistance organization of the 
labor movement and of all workers, which the CGIL should be, is being 
distorted into a surreptitious function of the "broad field" parties, or 
if you prefer, the so-called center-left, for a wholly political and 
institutional strategy geared towards the upcoming elections. This logic 
also includes the commitment made by joining the "No" committees for the 
upcoming confirmatory constitutional referendum in March on the 
separation of judicial careers.
Public healthcare is in an increasingly poor state, its funding reduced 
and effectively replaced by countless agreements with private providers, 
which in many areas account for well over 50% of healthcare provision. 
These same countless supplementary healthcare funds, provided for in 
sector contracts, represent a concrete and formidable tool for further 
reducing public provision and a true new "mutualization" of the 
healthcare system.
The working conditions of healthcare workers, from doctors to nurses, 
are underserved, torn by a plethora of different, downwardly priced 
contracts between the public and private sectors, characterized by the 
widespread and ever-increasing use of subcontracting, sham cooperatives, 
and precarious staff. The labor movement's stubborn refusal to mount a 
united and widespread battle for real wage increases, advocating the 
recovery of automatic wage adjustment mechanisms in the face of 
inflation-thus canceling the "Pact for the Factory"-a real and 
significant reduction in working hours, as well as a reduction in 
atypical and precarious forms of employment, can only lead to a 
continued erosion of the solidarity among workers and a disaffection for 
participation and collective struggle.
The paradox of this unfortunate approach is that political abstention 
itself, which for all progressives, as well as for the majority of union 
leaders, seems to be the greater evil, will only increase. The logic and 
analytical capacity of this political and trade union class is 
diametrically opposed to a correct-albeit minimal-materialist analysis.
The same popular initiative bill on public healthcare, while having some 
positive content (measures for the elderly and vulnerable, support for 
parenting and sexual education, and mental health protection), 
nevertheless falls short on some fundamental aspects. This bill, which 
is presented as a framework law, does not address the issue of 
eliminating, reducing, or even simply containing private healthcare. 
While the first articles call for increased funding and a strengthening 
of the National Health Service, the position regarding intramural 
visits, i.e., paid visits and private agreements, is unclear. These are 
the tools with which almost all Regions, on which the healthcare system 
depends, seek to reduce waiting lists and support the healthcare needs 
of the vast majority of workers.
It is clear that the bill stems from a lack of serious reflection by the 
various sectors, including the CGIL as a whole, on the damage that 
private healthcare funds have had and are having and all the 
regulations, now highly developed in both national and second-level 
bargaining, regarding so-called contractual or company welfare. These 
are vigorously reintroduced and refinanced by the same trade union 
leaders with each contract renewal, and even included in the public 
sector. We should begin to consider reducing them, initially considering 
the elimination of those preferential regulations that exclude these 
wage portions from contributions and that allow employers to exempt 
these monetary masses from taxation.
The deletion from the text proposed in the initial proposal of that 
article (art. 11), which albeit timidly attempted to regulate the forms 
of supplementary healthcare, containing the tax breaks currently 
envisaged and which, in order to safeguard the contribution amount for 
social security purposes, indicated that the contributions paid were 
subject to pension contributions paid by the employer, testifies to the 
renunciation of any, however difficult, action to counter this important 
aspect.[1]This would mean explicitly stating that health must be removed 
from any profit-making mechanism, reaffirming its fundamental nature as 
a right and not as a commodity.
Overcoming the corporatization model introduced way back in 1992, never 
corrected by subsequent governments, especially center-left ones, 
strengthened in the late 1990s by then-Minister of Health Rosy Bindi, 
who confirmed and strengthened the corporate-oriented evolution and 
"Pilates-like" established supplementary healthcare funds for services 
that exceeded the levels of care guaranteed by the National Health 
Service, which were prohibited by the 1978 law establishing the National 
Health Service. Healthcare should respond to needs and not to private 
profit mechanisms, just as it should not respond to privatized schemes.
In essence, what is needed is not so much a new bill - given the general 
parliamentary framework and given that every proposal must be discussed 
in parliamentary committees before reaching the floor, and that many of 
them stall during the legislative process and very few are definitively 
approved[2]- but a season of real conflict, starting with healthcare 
workers, with a few precise objectives on which to converge the entire 
workers' movement in solidarity with each individual sector of the 
workforce.
Just as partial victories, if not generalized, are destined for defeat 
or corporate retreat, the defeats of individual sectors are destined to 
become generalized if a movement of solidarity and unity is not 
established. The only real weapon we have, as a workers' movement, is 
our unity and conflict. Other paths lead to other shores and not to the 
liberation of labor from capitalist exploitation.
Notes
The title is a tribute to the opening lines of William Shakespeare's 
famous Hamlet monologue, which consists of an existential reflection on 
life and death, on suffering misfortune (being) or rebelling against it 
(not being), weighing the dilemma of enduring suffering and committing 
suicide.
[1]See From "The High Road to a Blind Vicolo?", "Lavoro e salute," year 
42, no. 1, January 2026 
(https://www.lavoroesalute.org/images/pdf/2026gennaio/lavoroesaluten1gennaio2026.pdf).
[2]From 1948 to today, out of 329 popular initiative bills, only 7 have 
been definitively approved, some of which were supported by regional 
governments. See for all the fate of the popular initiative bill 
"Charter of Universal Labor Rights," for a new Workers' Statute, 
presented by the CGIL in 2016 with over 3 million signatures and, as far 
as we know, not even discussed in the relevant parliamentary committees. 
See "Popular Initiative Law in the Italian Republic," Wikipedia 
(https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legge_di_iniziativa_popolare_nella_Repubblica_Italiana).

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