By way of introduction ---- I have long believed that it is a good rule,
when reasoning about political and social conflict, not to focus on theevents highlighted by the media cone of light but to try to grasp the
signals that are given in the deep structure of production and power
relations. ---- On the other hand, every rule provides for the
opportunity for exceptions especially when the situation is so complex
as to border on opaqueness and it may be appropriate to reflect on some
events that are given precisely on the level of communication but that
can be taken as useful probes to understand the game in progress.
Let's start with an event that is singular in many ways. Maurizio
Landini, the head of the most important national trade union
organization, declared a few weeks ago that he believes the time has
come for a real social revolt because we can no longer go on like this.
Now it is known that Maurizio Landini is characterized by a way of
communicating so vintage, a bit like Giuseppe Di Vittorio, that it works
well from a rhetorical point of view precisely because he uses a
language that is not usual for union leaders so much so that one could
define him as a populist.
On the other hand, proposing a social revolt seems disproportionate for
someone who has an idea of the social nature, the structure, the actual
activity of the CGIL, the agreements he signs and, at the same time,
triggers the reaction of the right that denounces him as a dangerous
subversive.
Landini has, it would have been strange if it had not been, clarified
that he does not mean with the words "social revolt" a recourse to the
practice of violence but that is water on water.
In short, he seems to be talking about a political-union mobilization
that is a bit more lively than those to which CGIL CISL UIL have
accustomed us in recent years.
However, if we cross the barricade appeal with the insistence that the
government in particular, but also all of its employer interlocutors
delegitimize the CGIL, a perhaps slightly malicious but I believe
well-founded interpretation of his statement is possible.
I would try to translate it like this: if the government and employers
insist on abandoning democratic corporatism, what in current language is
called concertation, and treat institutional unions like doormats,
social tension will only grow. In short, the CGIL differs, and it is not
the first time, from the CISL precisely on the fact of assuming that it
has friendly governments and enemy governments while, as is known, for
the CISL ALL governments are friends.
There is, it is good to remember, a discontinuity in continuity, the
trend of wages, the dismantling of schools, health, transportation and
welfare in general are more burdensome today than in the past and it is
clear that it will not be easy to obtain concessions of any kind.
The need for a gamble
It is good to recall very briefly not only the reasons for the need,
despite the obvious difficulties, for a general mobilization of workers
but also the reasons for the urgency of the resumption of general
initiative.
External war and internal war
We are in a context in which the clash between a US empire in some ways
in decline but for this very reason, if possible, more dangerous and an
ascending bloc that sees its point of aggregation in China, develops on
at least three fronts of which two, Russia - Ukraine and Israel - Iran
open and one, the most important one, that is between China and the USA,
in the background but if possible more worrying.
In this context, as far as Italy is concerned, military spending is
growing, there is an open process of militarization of society starting
from schools and with the DDL 1660 an unprecedented repressive crackdown.
This drift affects the same direct relations between workers on the one
hand and public and private employers on the other. The exercise of the
right to strike is subjected to increasingly heavy constraints.
On the union level, only the area of grassroots unionism is
characterized, beyond the differences in evaluation on individual
issues, by the opposition to the militarist drift and can build a
positive dialectic with the antimilitarist and pacifist movements.
The wage issue
The trend of wages has seen the continuous erosion of inflation for
decades which, with rare exceptions, is not countered by contracts
which, in the best of cases, are at most a very partial recovery of what
is lost.
An evaluation of the trend of wages must take into account in particular
the fact that the placement in the poor work bracket, that of those who,
despite working, do not have an income sufficient to guarantee them a
decent life, concerns millions of wage earners.
Talking about wages, on the other hand, means reasoning not only about
direct wages but also pensions and social wages, access to services,
decent healthcare, the right to housing and, in general, welfare, and
the budget maneuver under discussion, all areas in which an increasingly
radical social polarization is evident.
In this area there has been no shortage of positive and important
mobilizations, I am referring in particular to the strikes in rail
transport and local public transport that have seen massive
participation in recent weeks, whether they were called by grassroots
unions or by institutional unions.
As I wrote, these are important struggles and positive examples for our
class, but it is also true that in themselves they are the expression of
sectors of the class that, due to their position, have strong bargaining
power.
What I believe is lacking today, or at least not adequately, is the
ability to transmit the experiences and teachings of the avant-garde
sectors to the whole of our class; in short, there is a deficit of
subjective initiative.
The strike of November 29
The strike of November 29 has a history on the formal level, which is
not the most important, but which is worth remembering is quite complex.
In fact, it was called, I apologize if I missed some of the calls:
on October 16 by the Confederazione Unitaria di Base and the Sindacato
Generale di Base;
on October 30 by CGIL and UIL;
on November 2 by Adl Cobas, Camera del Lavoro Autonomo e Precario,
Confederazione Cobas, Sial Cobas.
Now, it is useless to insist too much on the fact that CGIL and UIL have
platforms and perspectives different from those of the grassroots
unionism and that, consequently, they called the strike on the same date
chosen by CUB and SGB because, to some extent, they were forced by the
same anti-strike legislation that they accepted very calmly for decades
when they did not favor it.
The subsequent calls should be interpreted as the product of the
evaluation by the organizations that made them that there was the
possibility of a successful mobilization.
In any case, we are faced with a day of strike that sees a large part of
the grassroots unionism on one side and CGIL and UIL on the other.
It goes without saying that such a broad front should favor
participation in the strike and in the demonstrations that will take
place on that day.
The question or rather the bet that follows is whether a resumption of
the social and union conflict beyond the affiliations of the workers is
in the cards.
Leaving aside the claim to predict a future that as is known rests on
the knees of the gods, it is a fact that on November 29, on the side of
organized subjectivity, there will be relative peculiarities:
the unity of a large part of the area of grassroots unionism that in
recent years has too often seemed like an Agramante camp. It is true
that signals in this direction had been there for some months but the
convergence that was given on November 29 is, objectively, unusual;
the division of the institutional union front. As I have already said,
it is not an absolute novelty but in this case the tensions appear
particularly strong. On other occasions they have subsided quite
quickly, it is not a given that this will also happen in this case. In
any case, these are dynamics that must be followed carefully;
on the other hand, with a government that makes the so-called
disintermediation and that is the end of the concertation between itself
and the workers a declared objective, the margins for reaching an
agreement that sees the CGIL as protagonist are, to be kind, very
modest. It is, if you look closely, likely that Maurizio Landini, having
paraded his troops and received the applause of the parliamentary
opposition, will bet all his cards on referendums as an effective form
of low-intensity "social revolt".
Finally, a theme comes up again. The tactical unity of grassroots
unionism on strike is, it goes without saying, necessary. We must ask
ourselves, and seriously ask ourselves, if it is sufficient.
In my opinion, the question should not be posed from a moralistic and
unproductive point of view. In fact, we know by heart that the unity of
workers is a good thing. The question is whether the groups that animate
grassroots unionism have the ambition of managing family businesses or
little more or whether, with a few decades of delay in my opinion, they
are not willing to consider the need to give life to an aggregation that
in terms of quality and quantity is useful and interesting for workers.
In any case, November 29th will be an opportunity to bring and make
visible our opposition to the employers and the government in the
workplaces and in the streets, let's try to go further in a long-term
perspective by building an articulated and effective mobilization.
Cosimo Scarinzi
https://umanitanova.org/verso-lo-sciopero-generale-del-29-novembre-note-a-margine/
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