WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, FDCA, Il Cantiere #21: Research on work in the industry of Emilia Romagna - Roberto Manfredini (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

In the trade union movement between the Seventies and Eighties, with
research on work, a proposal for industrial reconversion was developed
that was different from the traditional model of capitalist
restructuring. The economic planning and trade union policy proposals
become contents for changing economic and social structures. ---- These
analyzes and reflections were the basis of various experiences. There
are those who have responded to the historical dysfunctions of
capitalism (Imperialism, Big Capital, Corporate State) and in particular
the fall in the rate of profit, aiming at the processes of autonomy of
the financial markets, separating production from monetary distribution.
Even the hypotheses in the trade union field, on the control of
investments and the organization of work in companies, in the following
decades were scaled down and inserted into new macroeconomic contexts.
The process of globalization that began in those years combines the
effects of the cycle of accumulation and consumption, with a deficient
exchange model between backward and advanced countries.
The starting point for research on work in industry is to be found in
the regional conference in Bologna, on 9-10 October 1971, where the
first investigation into the decentralization of production in small and
medium-sized industrial and artisan enterprises in the metalworking
sector was presented. The introductory report by Claudio Sabattini
carried out to present the research data, photographs a reality that
presents many interesting data, also for the situation of the following
decades. The companies are presented according to a classification of
this type: a) companies that are part of an international group or
national whose decision-making centers are outside the region, b) local,
specialized company with a significant national and international
presence; c) medium-sized companies that work in a significant
percentage for national or international companies.
Characterizing elements of the regional metalworking sector are the
specialization of production directions (agriculture, transformation,
automatic machines, industrial automation), there are also ancient
companies that influence the direction of the entire surrounding
production sector, with a "knowhow" capable of promote the start-up of
new businesses, through a tool launched in those years, production
decentralization. At an industrial level, production decentralization is
a phenomenon that began in the 1950s, as a response to the need for
rationalization and productive restructuring resulting from different
economic situations. According to Sabattini's report, therefore,
industrial development in Emilia Romagna has within itself some
specificities that characterize the overall structure and the ways in
which this structure has reacted to the events of national development
since the years of industrial take-off. These include the reversal of
the work organization of large companies into decentralization, the
generic production of components is brought outside, while assembly
remains internal (it is no coincidence that it was in the 1990s that
flexibilisation and the transfer to "external to this aspect),
decentralization behaves like a "production lung" which allows for the
reduction of inventory and purchases and finally flexibilises working
hours for the possibility of wider use of overtime.
The research on work (despite the different positions of the different
authors - researchers, trade unions in its various structures and
categories, company delegates -), opens a necessary comparison after
that in October 1980, with the closure of the Fiat dispute, the the
impetus of the "worker subject" and a reflection on the trade union
experiences of the seventies and a resumption of action through
contractual contents becomes necessary.
We are thinking of overcoming the concepts of alienation and
subordination of paid work, towards a model of corporate cooperation
that enhances the informal work of employees, that which is outside of
their specific job, renouncing role rigidity in exchange for
participation. The company is seen in a market and efficiency context,
where decision-making capacity and control of working conditions are
discussed.

The trade union strategy in the face of automation, in the transition
from Taylorism to the integrated factory, takes into consideration the
possible "abolition" of the working class, verifying the attenuation of
alienated labor and the transformation of manual labor into that of
operators of automated systems. But there is also the observation that
in the integrated factory, with the organization of production groups,
the role of the union sees a retreat in contractual relations and that
participation can make bargaining weak and reduce rules such as the
right to strike. new project of bilateralism of relations also opens a
reflection on trade union representation and pluralism, in this new
scenario the union, through detailed bargaining, wants to contribute to
a new business model evolving from an empirical to a scientific
organizational method.
Conflict and participation also open a scenario on the extension of
intellectual work in companies, not only as an element of the necessary
consensus in production realities, the reading on the technological
process in transformation also sheds light on the role of the production
districts present in the local territory. The evolution of trade union
relations with respect to organizational and production models has
determined different negotiation tools but also different subjects in
addition to the union. The possibility of recovering the contents of an
industrial humanism is identified in small and medium-sized enterprises,
in the industrious districts, in the union delegates who co-manage the
companies at a molecular level, even in the absence of a social contract.
At the end of the experience produced in the Seventies, the
investigations into the production and organizational fabric also
involve surveys on the cultural data of the metalworking reality. The
research visualizes the moment of transformation of union representation
and relationship models in the factories of the region. The delegates
trade unions are the subjects through which the new reality and the
cultural image that derives from it are interpreted, through notions,
values and attitudes. On a political level, the anticipation of the
revision of social alliances and the exhaustion, due to the economic
crisis, of the projects for change, once coagulated by the historical
local organizations, is relevant, a crisis that corrodes the very
unitary union fabric.
Some notable research in the sector was:
FLM Bologna, Restructuring and organization of work. Investigation into
the metalworking factories of the province of Bologna, Edizioni SEUSI,
Rome, 1975;
Maura Franchi, Vittorio Rieser, Experience and culture of the delegates,
an investigation into the Modena metalworking reality, Bonhoffer
Edizioni, Reggio Emilia, 1984;
Fiom Modena, Innovation, work organization, professionalism, hours,
wages, research on the opinions of employees, technicians and managers,
1986-1988;
CGIL Modena, University of Modena, Survey of SMEs in Emilia Romagna,
Business efficiency and quality of work, 1992;
Giuseppe Fiorani, Maura Franchi, Vittorio Rieser (ed.), 1985-1992 Small
businesses grow. A research on small metalworking businesses in the
province of Modena, Unimore, 1993;
Alberto Pellacani, Work and competitiveness. Proposals for negotiating
wages and working hours. The Barilla case, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1995;
Fiom Emilia Romagna, Maurizio Landini, Gian Guidi Naldi, Regional
seminar on the situation of the automatic machinery sector in Emilia
Romagna, Bologna, 18 January 1999;
Ires CGIL, Delegates and organisation. The CGIL seen by those elected in
the RSU, Modena, October 1999;
CGIL Modena, Outsourcing and logistics in the Modena manufacturing
industry. The delegates' opinion on the organizational changes underway,
2001;
Fiom Modena, Investigation into the working and living conditions of
metalworkers, Modena, May 2007;
Loris Lugli, Stefano Tognoli (ed.), Innovation and quality of work in
Modena, Ires Cgil, Bologna, 2008;
Ires Cgil Emilia Romagna, Corporate welfare, National Ires survey and
University of Ancona. Questionnaire addressed to RSU-RSA
representatives, 2012;
Alberto Rinaldi, The system of small and medium-sized enterprises and
the "Emilia model", University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department
of Political Economy, Modena, 2012.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: AA.VV. Massimo Ricottilli, Technical progress and
innovation, (The case of two sectors that produce machines in Emilia
Romagna), Milan, 1989;
AA.VV. District, businesses, working class. The industrialization of
Emilia Romagna, «Annale 7-8», Franco Angeli, Milan, 1992;
Being a union - Fiom, Restructuring and working conditions in the
metalworking industry, in "Meta", number 3-4, 1992;
http://www.fondazionesabattini.it

Construction site no. 21 November 2023 ilcantiere@autistici.org

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