The struggle of the immigrant labourers is for the whole of the working class

Throughout Europe the bosses and the various bourgeois governments are attacking the workers’ living standards, because increasing their exploitation of the working class is the only way they can keep the capitalist economy, inexorably heading towards a crash, afloat.

In ensure the success of these attacks the bourgeoisie is using every means at its disposal to divide the working class.

Racism, which is being cynically propagated in the media, is a weapon used by the bosses to divide the workers, as indeed is part-time work, the subcontracting of work by companies to external agencies, the split between old ‘guaranteed’ workers and young workers without any job security or protection, the competition between workers of various agencies and firms due to the progressive dismantling of national wage negotiations, and the competition between public sector workers and those employed by private companies.

The more the Italian workers neglect immigrant workers the more they weaken themselves and lay themselves open to being blackmailed by their bosses; the more they are forced to accept lower wages and worse working conditions; the more the competition between workers exerts its crippling effect. The true struggle of the working class corresponds with the defence of those most prone to blackmail: by fighting for them, the workers who are relatively less exploited defend themselves from a competitive downward pressure being exerted on their own terms and conditions.

It is in the interest of the entire working class to fight to see immigrant workers relieved from the threat of losing their residence permits if they are laid off and for an extension of the right of citizenship to their families.

It is likewise in the interest of the entire working class to fight the blackmail of unemployment by struggling, employed and unemployed together, for the reduction of working hours and for the right to full pay for workers who are laid off; to prevent suppliers of contract labour who employ workers on worse terms and conditions from entering the factory or workplace; to prevent the hiring of workers on short-term, lower paid contracts; and to defend the national contract for each trade.

In order to defend itself from the effects of the crisis and from the increasingly harsh attacks by the bosses, the working class needs a genuine working-class union which, setting out from its struggles in the workshop, factory, company and trade, addresses itself directly to the workers and prepares them to mobilise together for a general strike, for as long as necessary and in pursuit of clear objectives, namely: against sackings, for unemployment pay related to the cost of living, for the defence of national bargaining and contracts, for rights of citizenship for immigrant workers and their families, for the reduction of working hours without a reduction in wages. These have been the objectives of the working class movement throughout its existence and they are based on the principle that defending the working class means eliminating competition from lower paid workers, which includes immigrant and unemployed workers. Such objectives can only be attained by a general movement, organised and led by a true working class union.

Rebuilding such a trade union is therefore an unavoidable question for the entire working class. Today it could emerge from a unification of rank-and-file trade unionism, which for many years has been struggling amidst countless difficulties against the bosses and the regime unions, unreservedly taking up the cause of the immigrant workers as the cause of all workers. But this unification can only emerge ‘from below’, overcoming sectarianism and the career politicking of the present leaders. It is therefore incumbent on the most combative and far-seeing workers and delegates in all the trade unions to organise themselves within their respective organisations to combat the serious damage being caused by the current divisions within rank-and-file trade unionism.

Racism isn’t an illness from which capitalism can be cured. Fighting racism with anti-racism, on the abstract plane of morality and respect for different cultures, is not just ineffective but dangerous, since it attacks none of racism’s material foundations. The only truely anti-racist struggle is the class struggle, because it unifies workers beyond race and nationality, and because it leads them to pass beyond capitalism to communist society; a society free from the slavery of wage labour, and the only material basis possible for the elimination of exploitation, racism and all the other reactionary ideologies of this increasingly inhuman and anti-historical society.