Report from the Second National Congress of the USB Pt.1

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.