WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria: The CUB at the congress (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Perhaps it will be one of the most difficult congresses in the now thirty-year

history of the Basic Unitary Confederation, the one that will open in Chianciano
on March 10th. Beyond the issues that have led to some divisions in recent times
(from the different ways of dealing with the pandemic-vaccines-greenpass issue,
to the different visions of the war in Ukraine, to the inevitable quarrels in the
managerial sphere on how to manage the union and its resources ) and which have
affected the life of every organization, trade union or not, the ones that will...
come home to roost will be fundamental problems concerning the very nature of the
grassroots union, its way of being and acting.
The general framework in which we operate today is characterized by a serious
crisis in the world of work, due to technological restructuring on the one hand,
to relocations on the other, to the radical transformation of the labor market,
to the financialisation of the economy. The most evident consequences of all this
are the growing precariousness of the proletariat, the cancellation of many of
the rights conquered with the struggles of the sixties and seventies of the last
century, the enlistment of reformist trade union organizations and "left" parties
in the capitalist and liberal, thanks to which the aggression against rights and
the revenge of capital on the world of work has accelerated.

It is a moving picture, which produces serious difficulties for union (and
political) action and redesigns disintegrated, disillusioned, prostrate, but
above all isolated and often conflict-free proletarian geographies. With the
expulsion of the workers from the factories, the disappearance of the large
industrial agglomerations in the south and their downsizing in the north, the
union also finds itself outside, especially if it is a union that one would like
to be an alternative to the concerted ones which, in any case, a certain margin
of mediation must necessarily maintain it, to guarantee the stability of the system.

A union like the CUB is suffering the repercussions of these changes on its
organic body, and they won't be the exceptions - which exist, and thank goodness!
- to represent the path to a recovery if the recovery does not go hand in hand
with a new ability to act among workers in this disrupted and disruptive context,
without falling in love towards alleged shortcuts.

If there are still working-class realities that we can almost define as
"traditional", inserted in geographical contexts in which the factory maintains
its own centrality, and if not the factory other poles (airports, logistics,
services, etc.), we must consider that half of Italy, almost entirely located in
the South, it lives a different experience: the cathedrals in the desert, which
have poisoned the territories and the workers, are dismantled or survive thanks
to state prebends and clientelism; agriculture is based on undeclared and migrant
work; the services, downsized, objectively represent pockets of privilege; young
people have a future of precariousness and emigration ahead of them; unemployment
(especially among young people and women) is rampant.

A grassroots union must equip itself to deal with these situations if it still
wants to play a meaningful role in society. He must treasure his own experiences,
the ability to fight expressed over time, but he must necessarily measure and
adapt them within a context that is now distorted.

Differences will emerge at the Chianciano congress on the problem of signing the
consolidated text on representation; proponents believe this may be the way back
to factories. It's actually not just a false problem, but it's a false problem.
Choosing the path that the system offers you is choosing rules created
specifically to eliminate social conflict. Those of the basic trade unions who
have chosen this path have not achieved the desired results either in terms of
growth or in terms of solving the problems of the categories. It is a false
problem because it can hide the inability to stimulate new actions and new
strategies, and, even worse, it can be (and in some cases is) the manifestation
of a spirit of self-preservation of a ruling class that harms (this spirit) how
it has hurt up to now, to the whole organization. It is the symptom of an
advanced bureaucratization which is superimposed on the body of the union,
according to processes already known in other union structures - and I am not
necessarily referring to the reformist and state-based ones. Conflict can do
without shortcuts that trade rights for concessions; it can be dangerous for the
bosses if there is determination and compactness. Outside of this there are the
lost paths of concertation and the sliminess of homologation, perhaps repaid by
an uncertain growth within a framework where the presence of state trade unionism
is stronger and better equipped than we neophytes.

At this point the CUB will be able to overcome the poisonous crisis that grips it
if it is able to reposition itself adequately in the current social chessboard,
restoring strength to conflicts. A sort of re-foundation which cannot, however,
be only strategic-political, but must re-sink its internal dynamics into that
federalist DNA which has represented its diversity and history. Autonomy of
territories and categories; posts with real executive tasks, rotating as much as
possible; enhancement of the horizontal and assembly structure; ability to
transmit these values (not just tools) to its members.

P.G.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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