For some decades, after the financialisation of the economy, the
privatization and sale off of industrial assets, the globalization ofcapital (but not of people) and the devastation of the most basic socialrights (conquered with very hard struggles in the last century),replaced by a parody of civil rights in a capitalist sauce (that is,enjoy them if you have the money), we are witnessing a journey (moreoverpredictable and foreseen) in time, which takes us directly back to thenineteenth century.A place where capital now does what it wants and, when it can, uses thesoft-power of a politically correct "narrative", but when it can it doeswithout it, putting on the clothes that suit it (let's be clear: forcapital, all the cloths are appropriate, in favor of civil rights butalso not. The important thing, of course, is that production relationsare not questioned, then anything goes).In the Florentine, or better Campigiana (from Campi Bisenzio) area, 2 ofthese cases have emerged.The first, which now dates back to a couple of years ago, is that ofGKN, well known in the news both for the modalities with which it wasproduced, and for the reaction (very unexpected in this historicalperiod) of the trade union representation, which set up an unusual andexceptional path.GKN produces automotive materials, it was acquired in 2018 by theMelrose fund. A speculative fund whose "mission" is to acquirecompanies, "recover" them and sell them by distributing the proceeds toits shareholders.It would be the typical vampire behavior of financial capital (and itis) if it weren't complicated by the fact that in that fund there areprobably also the pensions of other workers and workers. We can say badthings about Italy in the 70s of the last century (and it is useless toregret it), such a structured chain of behaviors (sale - hedge fund -private pension fund - company closure) would have been unthinkable inthat historical period .So Melrose buys GKN "rehabilitates" it and then fires all employees withan email. History is more complex than that, but this is not the placefor an in-depth study of industrial history. What is important to us isto highlight the reaction of the company's trade union representatives.They have started a long battle, which is still going on, bringing tothe attention of the political class the social bomb that this closurewould have caused. But not only that, workers' production has beenrelaunched with employment and self-management, demonstrating that thebosses, whether they are multinationals or individual "men of steam",are older and useless than the socialist ideologies that they believethey have consigned to history . A battle that has become national. Ledby capable people,In the face of this tough struggle, which is still going on (withworkers who haven't received their salaries for months) and whose end isunknown, lies the equally paradigmatic story of "Mondo Convenienza" abig player in the furniture sector, whose point of strength as its homepage says ( https://www.mondoconv.it/ ) is the price.Obviously these are realities where the product counts for very little,the price, the speed of delivery and, in short, the logistics"revolution" started by Amazon decades ago now count.But someone has to make this revolution, and this someone has to allowthe "low prices".And since logistics is the strong point (in addition to the "prices"),delivery workers have now become the new late eighteenth-centuryneo-proletarians. Infinite schedules. Hunger wages. This workforce isoften recruited from among immigrants, the most subjected to blackmailand the weakest.However, they too have raised their heads, but, in this case, theresponse of the company, but also, and above all, of the institutionshas been very different. If the GKN, a company with a specialized"white" and unionized workforce, received attention from the wholesociety, from the mayors (obtorto collo) and had a national resonance,the workers of "Mondo Convenienza" received the beatings of the policeand , like the Pinkerton agency, also the beatings by gangs of thugs. Inthe latter case, a very serious fact, there was no uprising and only theBase unions allowed, at least, not what happened to pass in silence.Also in the case of the GKN the confederal unions have been pulled bythe jacket, demonstrating their ever more evident loss of a real contactwith the world of work.To read the chronicle of those events and of the story, still completelyopen, some material can be found on the net. For example at this linkhttps://www.dirittiglobali.it/2023/06/mondo-convenienza-sfruttati-e-picchiati-i-lavoratori-insciopero/(article taken from the Manifesto).As I am writing these lines, the news arrives that today, July 23, 2023,there will be "a demonstration in support of the workers of MondoConvenienza who have been on strike since the beginning of June to havetheir rights recognized until now denied, a decent and not insecure job.Organized by the Si Cobas grassroots union of Florence and Prato, theprocession will cross the city to Piazza del Comune. There where MondoConvenienza vans have been stationed for days, in the disregard of theforces of order: "They are corporals and bosses who are trying toblackmail the Municipality - recalls the union - 'guilty' of havingsided with the rights and dignity, against the use of intimidationmethods reminiscent of the dark times of our country. For this there isa need to take to the streets, and for the territory to embrace thiscourageous struggle".(Riccardo Chiari, the Manifesto 7/23/2023).Let's hope that everyone is really there, even the confederal tradeunionists. As GKN has taught, the fight can only pay off if it becomesgeneral.In these dark times, when skilled workers fired outright and exploitedimmigrants still have the will and the courage to fight, even beyond theacronyms and the usual "prudence" and "tactics" that demolished therevolutionary forces in this country, opens up at least a glimmer of hope."And yet the wind still blows"Andrea Belluccihttp://www.ucadi.org/2023/07/28/eppure-il-vento-soffia-ancora/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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