Il Partito Comunista 384

What value does capitalism place on a worker’s life? For the sake of a measly saving of UKP 5,000 Grenfell Tower was “refurbished” with cladding material that did not even meet the minimum standards of fire safety, resulting in the needless and horrific deaths of scores of working class tenants. Meanwhile the owner of the property, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), sits on a surplus of UKP 270 million and last year handed out a rebate of UKP 100 in a clear electoral bribe to its wealthiest residents.

Words cannot adequately express our party’s outrage at the utter callousness and brutality of our class enemies. Callousness that extends from the evasive blather and buck-passing of the politicians who should be held responsible, to the commercial greed of the network of contractors responsible for the grotesque cost and corner-cutting in the so-called “regeneration project”-not least the cladding supplier, which deleted references to Grenfell from its promotional website at 4 am in the morning, while the fire was raging.

RBKC is the richest borough in the United Kingdom, home to countless millionaires who have racked up their huge fortunes from proletarian toil in every corner of the globe. But bordering Shepherd’s Bush and White City in the northwest of the borough, below the A40 Westway, it is also home to thousands of workers-both native British and recent immigrants-who live in cramped, poorly maintained and unsafe conditions. It is one of the poorest council wards in the country, and at the same time, an area with a rich tradition of working class struggle and culture that cuts across all ethnic and national boundaries. Inequality and class division is nowhere starker than it is here, at the heart of the UK capital.

There is nothing intrinsically unsafe about high-rise accommodation-after all, many of the world’s capitalist elite live in luxury skyscrapers. But when non fire-retardant materials are used, when there are inadequate fire exits, and when fires cannot be contained in a limited area, high-rise tenement blocks are quite literally death traps.

The tenants of Grenfell had been instructed to stay inside their flats while any fire was contained and extinguished. Instead, the non fire-retardant cladding meant the fire spread rapidly on the outside of the building. Some of those on the lower floors who disobeyed these instructions managed to escape. Those on the upper storeys had no chance.

Grenfell Tower’s direct landlord, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) supposedly exists to represent the interests of the tenants. Today, its so-called mission statement, “Delivering excellent housing services through resident-led management” makes sick reading. The reality is that KCTMO is a fraudulent front for the borough’s slum landlordism.

In December 2016 the Grenfell Action Group, set up in 2010 to protect the interests of residents against mistreatment by RBKC and KCTMO wrote prophetically:
It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders. We believe that the KCTMO are an evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia who have no business to be charged with the responsibility of looking after the everyday management of large scale social housing estates and that their sordid collusion with the RBKC Council is a recipe for a future major disaster.
Needless to say, Grenfell Action Group activists were bullied, branded as “troublemakers”, and some of the more vocal Grenfell residents even faced legal action. In particular, two young women, Mariem Elgwahry and Nadia Choucair, both of them feared dead in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, reportedly received solicitors’ letters ordering them to stop their campaign for improved safety.

The response of the authorities in the aftermath of the disaster was likewise pitifully slow and inadequate given that this blaze was the worst to hit London since the Second World War. It is difficult to imagine that this would have been the case if a similar disaster had occurred at the other end of the borough, in Sloane Square or on the King’s Road.

Nobody from central or local government took charge and the situation was made much worse by recent cuts to the London’s fire services-ten fire stations closed, and 27 fire engines removed and 552 jobs axed in 2014 alone. Consequently the emergency services worked under severe pressure, with many firefighters themselves suffering burns and injuries. “Put it this way, you’re meant to work on a fire for a maximum of four hours, we’ve been here for 12”, said one firefighter.

Volunteers stepped in where the authorities failed, providing what relief and help they could to survivors and the families of victims. They vented their anger against Prime Minister Theresa May and the leader of RBKC, who went out of their way to avoid residents.

It is also clear that the Government and RBKC have taken the opportunity to break an angry and potentially militant working class community. Modest proposals to requisition empty flats for temporary accommodation were rejected by the Government as an “attack on private property”. Rather than rehouse the survivors locally, RBKC chose to disperse them far and wide. It is likely that the authorities will, furthermore, use the land conveniently vacated as a result of the fire to build luxury flats rather than new social housing.

While little was done to contain the actual fire, the Government and its spin doctors swung into action to contain the burning anger. It was already clear to survivors and their supporters on the day after the fire that the death toll was enormous. But the Government, with the help of its lackeys in the media, did their utmost to play down the loss of life while spouting platitudes about “lessons to be learned”.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy is an indictment of the growing inequality of capitalist society and the poverty that exists even in the world’s wealthiest cities. The victims were murdered in clear sight of some of the richest people in the world. Their deaths are the responsibility of a system that is driven by an insatiable need to thieve off the proletariat by every means possible, not just at work but in their homes and in their social environment: for the accumulation of wealth at one end of the social spectrum through the accumulation of misery and degradation at the other.

The predictable response of those on the political left wing of capitalism has been, as ever, the demand for inquiries, more accountability, and more democracy. But these are all part of the swindle, as institutions like KCTMO, and previous “pubic inquiries”, demonstrate. They provide the ruling class with ideological cover until the next disaster-inevitably-occurs.

By contrast, genuine activism on the ground, within the working class, such as by the Grenfell Action Group, provide instruments for the immediate defence of tenants. Ultimate victory over the capitalist system and its horrors can however only be won when the party of the proletariat-the Communist Party-succeeds in unifying and leading all of the class’s struggles.

Introduction

The article below was first published in the July/August 2017 edition of Il Partito Comunista, the party’s bi-monthly newspaper in the Italian language. It is important in that it gives a very detailed idea of how the party’s line on the trade union question is applied in practice within the rank-and-file unions; with the constant emphasis on bringing to the fore the goal of building a truly class based union, by advocating actions and organizational tendencies that link the disparate struggles fought at the local, company, sectoral, national levels into an ever closer and stronger alliance; one which has the force to defend the working class demands of improved pay and conditions in the short term; but ultimately to impose, guided by the class party, a political solution to these economic demands on a far wider, definitive and ultimately international basis.

This political solution will not be imposed by seeking representation in parliament, but by moving to overthrow the current economic system altogether – a system based on the exploitation of the working class by a minute capitalist minority – and replacing it with a system – communism – in which society as a whole can be organized in a rational way; where the surplus value extracted from the population becomes first a social power deployed by the political power of the victorious working class, then a power deployed by the rationally organized force of the classless society that will follow it.

That is where all working class struggles ultimately lead; it is their logical conclusion, for anything else is an acceptance of the right of the enemy class to steal the lifeblood and energy of the working class and use it against the very class that produced it. And the enemy class will continue to do that for as long as political power remains in its hands; that is what it is impelled to do by its very nature; same as it is impelled to roll back all of the economic gains achieved by previous generations of workers…

At the right time, when the balance of forces is right, the function of the trade unions will change from fighting for piecemeal gains to that of fighting for a general and lasting realization of its aims at the general economic level. And for that battle to succeed, it will require the theoretical guidance and leadership of the class party, which acts as a repository of knowledge of past battles fought by the class, and just as importantly, of how we can draw the lessons of the past to fight the battles yet to come.

Within the union sphere, the composition of the working class army which will eventually fight for the ‘maximum programme’ on the economic front, will emerge from those union organizations that put up a really determined fight to protect working class interests, ever more necessary against the increasing economic encroachments of capital.

The unions found among the rank-and-file trade union movement in Italy are certainly heading in that direction; it is therefore still possible, and worthwhile, for communist militants to agitate within their ranks in the hope they will gain a hearing, and influence them into taking actions that enhance, rather than undermining, class unity.

The rank-and-file trade union movement that has grown, and continues to grow, in Italy, was shaped and inspired by widespread disgust at the tendency of the ‘regime’ trade unions to always put the interests of the bosses and nation – in a word, of capital – before those of its members. In Italy a direct line connects these regime unions (which defend a national-patriotic solution to economic problems) to their forebears: the fascist workers’ corporations. But the regime unions – or ‘tricolour’ unions, which we in England and America might dub ‘Union Jack’ or ‘Star and Stripes’ unions, are now found pretty much everywhere, even in those countries without specifically fascist antecedents. Fighting ‘outside and against’ the unions is therefore bound to become a pressing necessity not just in Italy but everywhere.

But to be ‘against something’ – against the regime unions – isn’t necessarily the same as being ‘for something’. In Italy, however, we see in a particularly developed form, even if it is also happening to a certain extent elsewhere, the increasing definition of what that ‘something else’ will necessarily have to be: the class union. And the battle by our militants to fight for this new positive goal, following the widespread rejection and exodus from the regime unions, is what this article is really about.

Finally, given the bewildering proliferation of ‘initials’ and acronyms by which the numerous rank-and-file unions in Italy are known, and the number of references in the text to specifically Italian labour legislation and organizational structures, we have added footnotes to aid readers’ comprehension. We have also not translated some passages from the original article which we deemed too specifically connected to the Italian scene; those, for instance, which covered internecine struggles whose local or specific nature would have obscured the general emerging picture: of a trade union movement, within which communists can actively agitate and participate, which is moving towards a broader and stronger class union; a matter of utmost relevance to workers everywhere.

A short history of the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB)

The USB was born in 2010 when the Rappresentanze Sindacale di Base (RdB) ⁱ combined with the small Sindacato dei Lavoratori (SdL) ⁱⁱ and some minority groups from within the Confederazione Unitaria di Base (CUB) ⁱⁱⁱ. The RdB, the largest of the USB’s components, were formed in the early 1980s, and mainly organized workers in the public sector. The CUB was born in 1992, after the Confederation Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori (Cisl) ^iv expelled one of its minority left currents. Established originally within the private sector, this organization entered into a federative pact with the RdB, forming the RdB-CUB, so as to establish a base union present in both the private and public sectors.

Other important rank-and-file unions at the time were the Confederazione Comitati di Base (Cobas) ^v – formed in the mid 80s by workers in schools and which is still based mainly in this sector – and the SLAI Cobas, present in some big metalworking and engineering (metalmeccaniche) factories, like Alfa Romeo in Arese and Pomigliano, and FIAT in Termoli, and Sevel in Atessa.

In an attempt to unify the action of these various organizations, not yet ready to unite on an organizational plane, the RdB-CUB, the Confederazione Cobas and the SdL organized a national assembly on 17 May 2008, which the following September paved the way to the constitution of a “Patto di Consultazione Permanente Nazionale” [Permanent National Consultation Agreement], and later on, during a second assembly on 7 February 2009, to the so-called “Patto di Base” [Base/Rank-and File Agreement].

Only three months later however, on 22 May 2009, a new national assembly of the RdB-CUB revealed the yawning chasm that existed between its two main components, along the fault line of a never-achieved merger, with the long-time leading group of the CUB not participating in the initiative and the RdB leadership using the assembly to issue the slogan of the “Metropolitan Trade Union” [q.v. “Marcia indietro: Il sindacato metropolitano”, il Partito Comunista, maggio-giugno 2009], an issue we will return to later.

This assembly would pave the way to the formation a year later, on 23 May 2010, of the Unione Sindacale di Base ^vi.

The constitution of the USB has been justified by its leaders on the grounds it was a decisive step towards the objective of unifying rank-and-file trade unionism, by overcoming the qualitative limitations of the latter and moving towards the building of a genuine, confederated class trade union “of the masses”.

However things didn’t go quite according to plan. The formation of the USB certainly unified a part of rank-and-file trade unionism but at the cost of a serious rift with the remaining part. Overall, therefore, as regards the objective of unifying rank-and-file trade unionism, it has been a backward step.

Also the USB is not yet the “mass” trade union, organized and powerful, that its leadership would have us believe. In fact, strength-wise, the rest of rank-and-file trade unionism isn’t actually lagging that far behind the USB, and this has been demonstrated in practice by several struggles in a number of different firms and a number of different sectors, e.g. telecommunications, on the railways, in Alitalia, IKEA and FIAT. And not forgetting logistics, where the USB presence is small compared to that of the SI Cobas and on a par with the smaller ADL Cobas, another rank-and-file union present in the sector.

All of this means it necessarily has to establish relations with these trade unions in order to take any action in defence of joint interests. But the position of the USB leadership, which considers that Rank-and-file trade unionism is ‘residual’ and a dying force, can only make achieving this objective that much more difficult, causing a serious setback as far as the general consolidation of the workers’ movement is concerned.

The latest blatant example of this was the non-participation of the USB in the national general transport and logistics strike in June 2016; a strike promoted – something as positive as it is rare – by all the other rank-and-file unions

Joint action, having already proved difficult at the company and sector level, then proved impossible at the confederal level; in fact, the refusal of the national leaders of the USB and CUB to co-ordinate their strikes goes back as far as 2010.

The balance sheet of the unification of rank-and-file trade unionism, since the formation of the USB, is therefore not a positive one and to pretend the problem doesn’t exist, by rather arrogantly describing the rest of rank-and-file trade unionism as ‘residual’, and trying to get us to believe that the USB can defend the workers and oppose the patriotic tricoloreunions and the bosses’ regime all on its own, does not take into account the real balance of forces and is a serious mistake.

It is therefore necessary to take a step back, to relinquish organizational pride, and to patiently and obstinately rebuild a co-ordinating body to make links with other rank-and-file trade unions; that is the only way we will be able to cope with the increasingly challenging battles ahead, amongst which the struggle, already looking increasingly necessary, to defend the freedom to strike.

After it was formed the USB slowly but surely made its presence felt within the private sector, increasing its membership within the retail sector, logistics, among farm labourers, and among the metalworkers.

This was in part due to a continuous trickle of forces from the Cgil ^vii to the USB, both union leaders and general members. The most important episodes relating to this were the passing from the Fiom ^viii to the USB, in June 2016, of the national spokesman of the left minority group within the Cgil, “Il sindacato è un’altra cosa” ^ix, closely followed by a minority of that current.

This new influx of forces was also due – and in particular among the metal-workers – to the USB having signed up to the Testo Unico sulla Rappresentanza (TUR) ^x in May 2015: Sickened and disillusioned by the increasing submissiveness of the Cgil to the bosses’ interests, some of its leaders, union reps and militants decided to join the USB, opting for them as opposed to other rank-and-file unions both because it is strongest on the organizational level, and because by belonging to the USB they could continue to take part in one of the two kinds of Trade Union Representative body that exist at the company level ^xi and pursue a trade union activity which, even if it did accept the necessity for struggle, also considered trade union recognition indispensible – with the consequent right to sit at the company negotiating tables and enjoy so-called trade union ‘fitness for purpose’ (agibilità), that is, so-called trade union rights within the company – even if at the expense of the restrictions on the right to strike that abiding by the TUR involves.

Signing up to the TUR is a risky strategy: it might pay off in terms of more members and more RSUs won over but it places the union on an inclined plane, where its growth might come at the expense of its activity, with the risk of it becoming bogged down in consultations, or what is referred to in Italy as ‘concertative’ activity. Although this is not inevitable, it is a real and palpable danger we must not underestimate, much less ignore.

And it should be noted, by the way, that signing up to the TUR was also the result of a lack of will on the part of the rank-and-file union leaders, and in particular the CUB and USB, to promote a joint action to oppose it. Each of them acting on their own behalf, these organizations went their own way and made their own choices.

Adhesion to the TUR has become the principal polemical weapon used by the CUB leadership against the USB and it is used as an argument against the two organizations engaging in joint actions: opposition to the Inter-confederation Agreement on Representation features in all of the CUB leadership’s calls for a general strike; given that signing up to the TUR means abstaining from trade union action against it, this prevents the USB from supporting strikes declared by the CUB.

And that, incidentally, appears to suit the USB leaders. A case in point is the general strike in the transport and logistics sectors on 16 June, when the possibility remained open to the USB to strike on the same day with its own platform, something which however the leadership was definitely minded not to do, as on so many other occasions in the past. On the other hand the CUB leadership’s utilization of the TUR issue looks like it is exploiting the situation, prioritized as it is above the primary necessity of uniting the actions of the workers.

In short, the leaders of the two rank-and-file unions seem to mirror each other, dividing the struggles in the interests of their inter-trade-union war, and all to the detriment of the labour movement.

The USB’s growth in the private sector has seen a corresponding weakening, minor in quantitative terms, in the public sector. This is revealed in the figures from the latest RSU elections (45,799 votes in 2013; 44,455 in 2016) and in the membership roll (19,085 in 2012, 17,411 in 2015), which were also no doubt due to the law passed in 2014 which reduced the number of hours militants in public sector unions were allowed to carry out union activity during work time.

In some regions of North Italy – Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Veneto – the USB was also badly hit by the split in February 2016 that led to the formation of the small Sindacato Generale di Base (SGB), which then went on to draw up an agreement with the CUB. Another episode, this, in the ongoing battle between the leaders of the rank-and-file unions which shows how illusory is the USB leadership’s claim to have risen above rank-and-file trade unionism and attained the higher level of class unionism – an objective we all share moreover – but by means of short-cuts that are still entirely compatible with the rationale of rank and file unions battling among themselves.

As for the SLAI Cobas, a number of factors have caused it to shrink drastically, namely: the closure of the big factory in Arese; the expulsion in 2005 of part of the Milanese tram drivers’ RSU and the provincial co-ordinations of Varese and Como, with the consequent formation of the AL Cobas which in 2010 joined the CUB; repression by the bosses, which in Pomigliano for example had a major impact; and the split in 2010 which gave rise to the formation of the SI Cobas. Also in decline is the Confederazione Cobas.

Today, therefore, we have two main inter-category rank-and-file unions: The USB and the CUB.

To them we can add the SI Cobas, which despite being mainly established in logistics – although there are a few exceptions –it is proving to be the most dynamic of the three, and the one which follows the correct, classist trade-union line most closely, as regards for example its insistence on workers’ united action. The SI Cobas has gone out on strike with the CUB on several occasions and also with the USB, using as criteria for such decisions whether or not a strike, and therefore the workers’ struggle as a whole, would be strengthened by its participation. For the same reasons it has also supported general actions promoted by the Fiom and the Cgil.

The conflict between the leadership of the CUB and the USB has been a factor ever since these unions were formed and it has got worse over time, despite the increasingly brutal attacks the working class has been subjected to. We can see no way that the current leaders will resolve the situation.

Nevertheless in each of these organizations there are workers and union representatives who are opposed to this behaviour. Our party’s trade union line consists of struggling, in every rank-and-file trade union, to promote unity of action in all struggles, at the company, category, confederation, territorial and national levels. This unity of action is the necessary basis for attaining unity on the organizational plane, which will only be possible if the workers’ movement is reinforced by an influx of more combative workers into these unions; something which will make dumping the mistaken lines currently being followed by the present leaders a real possibility.

Another “One Motion Congress”

On 9, 10 and 11 June there was held at Tivoli the national confederal assembly of trade union delegates to the Second Congress of the Unione Sindacale di Base.

The lengthy process leading up to the congress had begun on 26 November 2016 at the National Councils of the Private Sector Employees (Lavoro Privato), of the Public Employees (Pubblico Impiego), and at the National Confederal Council, which governs the union as a whole. The following day the National Co-ordinations, the Council’s smaller leading organs elected by the Councils and which in their turn elect the even smaller Executives, made public their respective congressional rules.

On 21 January 2017 the Confederal national Co-ordination approved – unanimously – the Confederal congressional document. Also in January, the document of the newly arisen USB Federazione del Sociale ^xii, of which more later, was drawn up.

We should clarify here that a “congressional document” outline proposals for the programme a union should follow between one congress and the next and it is the leadership of a union that produces this document. Thus the USB leadership wrote one document for each of the three main branches of the union: private sector, public sector, and the union as a whole; and also other congressional documents for the union’s minor branches: Federazione del Sociale, ASIA, Pensionati.

On 10 and 11 February the documents for the respective congresses of the USB Public Sector and Private Sector Employees, supplementing the Confederal one, were approved.

On 28 February a national assembly set in motion preparations for the first congress of USB Pensioners.

Workplace meetings were held in March; by 12 April the provincial congresses, and in early May the regional congresses, of the Public and Private Sector employees had taken place.

In Tivoli on 10 May the first national congress of USB Pensioners was held; on 13 May there was both the national congress of the USB Public Sector employees and the sixth congress of ASIA USB (Tenants and Residents Association); on the 14 May there was the national congress of Private Sector employees.

By the end of May the Confederal regional congresses had taken place, finally leading in June, at the end of this long drawn-out process, to the national Congress.

This second congress, just like the first one in 2013, would revolve around just one document. Yet again the congress rules made no provisions for a plurality of documents to be presented and discussed at all stages of the congressual process, from base to summit.

Only within the National, Confederal and Public and Private sector Co-ordinations, which had met to launch the congress on 21 January and 11 February, could different documents, if presented by at least three members (in 2013 it was five), be discussed, from which however only one document could be selected and put out for discussion at the company, provincial, regional and national levels.

Thus was ruled out both the possibility of debating documents supported by minorities within the national co-ordinations – something formally permitted even within the Cgil – and the possibility of alternative documents being presented by the rank-and-file of the union, if supported by a certain proportion of its members.

The congress debated only one document presented by the union leaders. It would concede that motions to amend the document and items on the agenda could be proposed. And that is what happened.

The fact that regulations of this type have been unanimously approved by the Public and the Private Sector Employees’ National Co-ordinations – we don’t know the outcome of the vote in the Confederal Co-ordination – indicates that there is a serious lack of understanding about the ways and means required to manage and develop an authentic class union; although maybe some have just taken the opportunist decision not to oppose them.

To block free expression of the different opinions within the trade union organization, instead of defending free expression and being disciplined enough to achieve a healthy co-existence, can only lead to periodic crises, as has already been the case. The first congress was marked both by the departure from the USB of the greater part of the Varese, Brescia and Legnano Federations, and of a smaller part of the Milan Federation, and by the non-participation of three national Co-ordinations within the ministries of Infrastructure and Transport, Defence, and National Heritage and Culture. In February 2016 there was the split which led to the formation of the SGB (which we will refer to in the second part of this article) ^xiii.

In general terms our line is that we are opposed to splits within the trade unions. For example, our comrades within the USB contributed to the battle against the leadership’s decision to sign up to Testo Unico sulla Rappresentanza Sindacale (see note below), but they opposed and criticised the choice made by those who, after having led that internal struggle, decided to abandon the union.

One cannot however entirely lay the blame for those departures and splits on those who left. The leadership are also to blame.

The congressional rules, internal regulation and statutes of trade unions are obliged to specify the executive’s disciplinary responsibilities, but they should likewise guarantee full freedom of expression to the different trade union tendencies, as regards practical and concrete approaches rather than private ideologies, and allow these groupings the freedom to organize within the union and promote their views on union policy, by presenting alternative documents at congresses, organizing meetings, writing and distributing their literature, etc.

To put obstacles in the way of freedom of expression out of fear it will divide and weaken the union produces the opposite effect. The (apparent) homogeneity which currently exists within the leading organs of the USB, as well as being the fruit of earlier crises which wasted much precious energy and caused many militants to leave, is a far from definitive result. As new groups of workers join and the organisation expands, a plurality of internal currents will form as a matter of course, and the best way of disciplining their activity would be to make correct use of the instrument of congresses at the various levels, by engaging in discussion and weighing up the different viewpoints. If this doesn’t happen the forces with no means of expressing themselves or of existing within the organization are bound to leave.

With democracy a mere façade and internal dissent repressed you don’t encourage the growth of a large class trade union but trade union fragmentation instead; this is the perennial defect of rank-and-file trade unionism from which the leadership of the USB believes, or wants to believe, it has emancipated itself.

(In the next part we will go on to consider the trade union policy which emerged from the congress).

i – RdB – roughly translated, ‘Base/Rank-and-File Trade Union Representations’. We will translate the Italian word base, which appears in the denominations of several of the other organizations referred to, as either ‘Base’ or ‘Rank-and-File’ as seems appropriate.

ii – SdL – Workers’ Union.

iii – CUB – Amalgamated Rank-and-File Confederation.

iv – Italian Workers’ Trade Unions’ Confederation.

v – Confederation of Base Committees.

vi – USB – United Rank-and-File trade unions.

vii – Cgil – Italian General Confederation of Labour, the biggest trade union federation in Italy. Although now firmly national-patriotic in orientation, it uses its past history and connection with the pre-war CGL to project a left-wing image; all the better to corral unsuspecting militants, and head off their struggles into channels acceptable to the ruling class.

viii – The FIOM is the metalworkers union within the Cgil.

ix – “Il sindacato è un’altra cosa” – rough translation: The union is another thing/something else.

x – Testo Unico sulla Rappresentanza Sindacale (TUR) – (Unified Text on Trade Union Representation). The TUR, which came into effect in January 2014, is effectively an agreement between the Regime workers’ Unions on the one hand and the bosses’ Confederation – the so-called “Confindustria” – on the other. It defines “rules on trade-union representation”, establishing, among other things, that the right to be included in the trade union representation at the company level, and to participate in the national CCNL negotiations, is conditional on agreeing to limitations on the freedom to strike.

xi – In Italy actually there are two kinds of Trade Unions Representative Body at company level. One type is the “Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitari” (RSU), first established in 1993 through an agreement between the Regime Unions and the Bosses’ Organizations, and replacing the earlier “Consigli di fabbrica” (Factory Councils), which were established from the late sixties by workers and unions without the agreement of the bosses. The TUR renewed the rules which had established the RSU, and placed them more under the control of the regime unions. The other type of Trade Union Representative Body at the company level is the RSA, “Rappresentanze Sindacali Aziendale”, which were given legal recognition in 1970”.

xii – Federazione del Sociale – Social Workers’ Federation. 

xiii – While translating this article into English, news reached us on 28 February 2018 of another major exodus from the USB, of a part (possibly the greater part, it is too early to say) of the union’s structure working in the commercial sector (USB Commercio), with its national leadership, union representatives and hundreds of members moving across to the Confederazione Cobas. The USB’s growth in the commercial sector over the last few years, (possibly greater than among the metal workers, another area where it had grown significantly) had been one of the major successes achieved by this union, and this has now been gravely compromised.