Introduction

The text we are republishing is the logical continuation of the article that appeared in issue 436 under the heading “Revisiting the Trade Union Question”; the title itself encapsulates the historical assessment of an entire cycle of struggles while simultaneously—through the power of materialist dialectics—building a bridge toward the resumption of future struggles.

1992 was an eventful year in the history of the Italian labor movement: on July 31, the Triplice (three main unions federations) , Confindustria, and the government (led by Giuliano Amato) signed the first of the infamous Interconfederal Agreements on “income policy, the fight against inflation, and labor costs”; a veritable abdication of the struggles to defend the living and working conditions of the working class. The proletariat did not stand idly by and erupted in violent protests against the regime’s unions, ushering in that autumn what went down in history as the “season of the bolts.” 

Let us analyze this crystal-clear text step by step. 

The first three points establish the causes (the economic crisis that led to the collapse of the lira) that led the henchmen of capital to bow their heads once again in the face of yet another demand for “sacrifices for the good of the nation”; we then move on to reaffirm the fundamental Marxist thesis that all “armies (all state apparatuses) are allied against the proletariat,” before concluding this overview by driving home the tactical point: the Triplice has been hired by the bourgeoisie and is useless for the purposes of the class struggle, even though within the CGIL (apparently still a militant union) there is a political current known as the “union left” which in reality has the fundamental task of fooling the most militant workers (point 5). 

How should we react to this terrible situation? By rebuilding the Class Union, whose objective (point 6) can only be the uncompromising defense of every group of exploited workers demanding a piece of bread; a rebirth that cannot occur through a game of well paid jobs and silly pawns at the top , but through strikes of indefinite duration from the outset and without warning (point 7). 

How should the Union organize itself? The recipe does not arise—still and always—from an intellectual construct of a cabal of enlightened individuals, but emerges dialectically from the unfolding of the historical course and its understanding by the Party organ: not a mythical Union  of Councils with proletarians constantly divided by factory, but Chambers of Labor where proletarians can come together without distinction of job. Not an organization of professional bureaucrats but of proletarians who voluntarily dedicate their energies to the defense of their class. 

The text therefore concludes with the principles that must—because they materially must—inspire the class-based trade union, premises of such great clarity that we leave them to the reader.

A Path Toward the Rebirth of the Class Union

(from “Il Partito Comunista,” No. 205, 1992)

1. The deepening of capitalism’s economic crisis is driving the ruling class to shift its painful effects onto the workers. Now that the cycle of enormous profits for the wealthy classes has ended in all countries—profits that allowed for some minimal and fleeting improvements in wages and labor standards, obtained, moreover, through hard struggles that cost dozens of lives in clashes between strikers and police—today, capital and its state are abruptly pressing to plunge workers into misery and the most total insecurity. This attack is being waged by the states against workers simultaneously in all countries, in Europe and beyond, in the East as well as the West, in poor countries as well as in the so-called “rich” ones.

2. To prevent the workers’ spontaneous defensive reaction, all the forces of the bourgeois regime are mobilized—from the government to the police, television, and the press—which are and will always be ready to resort to any violence, intimidation, and lies to defend the privileges of the capitalists, even if it means reducing the working class to despair and starvation.

3. The trade unions officially recognized by the state—both confederal and autonomous—have become indispensable tools for countering the mobilization of the exploited, their practical actions now coinciding with those of a special police force against workers.

The CGIL, which was reborn after the war, inheriting from the fascist unions the corporatist ideology of the national interest to which all workers must submit, has in recent decades become increasingly closed off to workers’ demands for defense and struggle. Workers have increasingly had to give up these demands and endure employer harassment, layoffs, etc., or organize and strike outside of it. This gradual rendering of the CGIL useless (while the CISL and UIL have been so from the start) has now become confirmed, total, and irreversible. 

In plain sight, the CGIL-CISL-UIL and the bourgeois regime are now one and the same.

4. It is therefore imperative today for the exploited to rebuild their own strong, loyal, and combative CLASS UNION—a permanent expression of the oppressed’s hatred for their condition and of their struggles of resistance against the boundless greed of the capitalists. An organization that springs from the working class and answers only to it, which assumes no responsibility whatsoever toward the bourgeois classes, their economy, and their nation, since its declared purpose is to defend workers against them.

Faced with a coordinated and unified capitalist attack, workers find themselves divided by factories, categories, and locations: only within a broad Class Union, spontaneously disciplined in its actions, can they present a united front in the struggle.

To achieve maximum mobilization, the Class Union has always recruited not on the basis of a specific ideology, but anyone who finds themselves in the objective condition of a worker, regardless of their political sympathies. The class needs the functions of both the Union and its political Party, which are, however, distinct though complementary and require separate organizations. To propose the formation of a Union composed solely of communists, or of a hybrid organization halfway between a Union and a Party, would be to condemn it from the outset to impotence and to abandon the majority of the proletariat to its own —that is, to regime-aligned unionism. Conversely, demanding “independence from parties”—in the sense of preventing militant party members from joining or speaking out—would mean handing the union over to the “diffuse party” of the dominant bourgeois ideology, which infiltrates the workers through a hundred different channels.

5. The so-called “trade union left,” maneuvering from within the confederal hierarchies with ambiguous and seemingly combative statements, seeks to convince workers to still trust the regime’s unions. The real aim is to sow confusion to delay genuine reorganization and general mobilization. The trade union left, with its typical demand for “democracy in the union,” deceives the workers. It is not that the union has sold out to the bosses because it does not respond sufficiently to the rank and file; on the contrary, it can no longer obey the workers because it has, once and for all, switched to the bosses’ side. Therefore, inducing the workers to commit themselves to gaining a hearing from these leaders is merely a delaying tactic.

6. The PURPOSE of the Class Union is the defense of the living and working conditions of the working class. This is understood in its broadest sense as the collective of labor providers who do not own the means of their labor, regardless of the form of remuneration: it therefore includes manual and intellectual workers, productive and unproductive workers, those employed by an individual employer, by a cooperative of employers, or by the State. Excluded are members of other classes, namely capitalists—even small and micro-capitalists (artisans and farmers)—and strata spanning multiple classes (tenants, students, etc.). Pensioners and the unemployed, however, are organized, not separately but within their respective categories of origin.

The DEMANDS of workers that the Class Union traditionally takes up tend toward the defense of wages, with special consideration for the lowest levels, the reduction of working hours, and the defense of retirees and the unemployed, for whom a wage sufficient for the survival of their families is demanded.

7. The MEANS the Class Union prepares to use to impose its demands on the ruling class and its state are limited to direct action by workers in strike initiatives of unlimited scope, commensurate with the intensity of bourgeois resistance. It must be rejected on principle to entrust the condition of the working class to the outcome of referendums in which all classes participate, as well as to the vote of the bourgeois parliament and the rulings of the courts. The best deployment of the class’s strength lies in the general and all-out mobilization of all categories, in the rejection of the regulations currently imposed by the bourgeoisie and accepted by the regime’s unions—from limitations in time and space to the obligation of advance notice, minimum services, and the suspension of strikes during negotiations.

The Class Union requires a territorial organization outside the workplace (in the tradition of the Chambers of Labor) where factory representatives and individual workers scattered across small and very small production units can regularly meet, strengthen their ranks, and coordinate initiatives.

The RSUs and RSAs (fworkplace organizations) necessarily maintain a vision limited to the corporate sphere, which can be highly partial, if not in conflict with the needs of the movement as a whole: this is why it is a mistake to place them on the same level as the Class Union and to advocate for a network of various RSUs and RSAs organized independently, in parallel with, or as an alternative to, the Union. It is through union organization that workers transcend the limitations of the factory and then also of the sector and the occupational category, to mobilize as a class in defense of common interests.

8. There are no organizational formulas that guarantee the correct class orientation. In this sense, the demand for the application of the principles of trade union democracy (deliberative assemblies, consultations, and referendums) does not resolve the problem of rebuilding a class-based trade union organization. In a situation of retreat, the response of the rank and file can be highly controversial and misleading, if not outright contrary to the interests of the class; Moreover, workers in struggle cannot be placed on the same level as scabs, nor can militant layers of the working class be equated with the labor aristocracy or white-collar elite, who may seek to separate themselves from the movement to defend particular interests. It is also to be expected that the bourgeois state, when faced with a resolute trend toward class reorganization, will resort to its typical, well-tried provocations and violent repression. This process of reorganization may therefore not unfold in a peaceful or legal climate, but in an environment of open state repression and fierce social conflict that may also require appropriate forms of self-defense.

9. PRINCIPLES of the Class Union:

a) to strive for solidarity among workers of all categories to oppose the divisions imposed to their disadvantage by bourgeois society;

b) the Class Union does not take upon itself the defense of the national economy or the finances of the bourgeois state, nor does it propose alternative solutions to their crisis in accordance with a “contributory justice” that is inconceivable in this society. If the state is compelled to attack the petty bourgeoisie, let it bear that responsibility: the Class Union stands firm in the uncompromising defense of the working class;

c) it fights for wage and regulatory equality, for equal pay for equal work, regardless of age, race, gender, nationality, religion, or language; 

d) its objective is the international solidarity of workers, understood not as a sentimental or abstract statement, but as a perspective of common goals, struggles, and organization;

e) considers that the actual ability to strike and organize does not stem from rights guaranteed by laws or constitutions, but from the real balance of power between the classes: it is just as possible for a legal strike to be banned as it is for an underground union to emerge. Accepting laws on the self-regulation of strikes to obtain formal recognition from the state is a grave error because the bosses and the state will never, in practice, recognize—unless forced by force—a union that truly fights them; real representativeness can be achieved only through the membership and mobilization of workers on an uncompromising class line;

f) Trade union organization must be separate from and opposed to employer and corporate structures and must be financed solely by the workers. Collection via authorization from the employer must be firmly rejected, as it entails handing over the membership list to the class enemy and allows the union’s financial resources to pass through the employer’s hands;

g) In its true tradition, union activism is carried out by ordinary workers, after working hours at their own expense and sacrifice. The excessive use of salaried officials, secondments, and meetings held during paid working hours—but conducted under the watchful eye of the employer and his spies—only seemingly facilitates organization and is often used as a form of corruption, intimidation, and blackmail;

h) Rejecting prejudices and erroneous explanations regarding the causes of the degeneration of the regime’s unions, the Class Union must evolve into a single, national, structured, and centralized body, to which the proletariat voluntarily adheres in the pursuit of coordinated action toward common goals. For its operation, permanent executive bodies are indispensable, as they alone can ensure swift and unified decision-making in action. The necessary oversight of leaders’ loyalty to the class interest and the selection of the best union policy line is a capacity that the class must develop, but one that does not lead it to the suicidal conclusion of depriving itself of its indispensable organizational tools;

i) The Class Union recognizes that true and lasting relief from the suffering of the exploited will come only through full emancipation from wage labor, the general objective it pursues. 

The Trade Union Fraction of the International Communist Party