Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

March of discontent: lessons in work struggles (Italy)

italy calling | 30.03.2013 20:43 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | World

The working class is awakening, and the mobilisations of the last few days among the logistics sector workers in Emilia Romagna are the first signs. Recently, we have seen two different images of work struggles: the Peugeot workers in Paris clashing with the police on one hand; and the sad, resigned-looking picket organised by Fiom outside a Fiat establishment in Italy, on the other hand. Both are fighting for their jobs, but the differences are clearly visible and stimulate many diverse reflections. The French workers’ determination in defense of their rights and dignity has spread to the Italian logistics sector workers’ mobilisation on March 22, and manifested in their determination to defeat the enemy. Workers of different backgrounds and origins, Italians and migrants, have united against the exploitation carried on by the worker cooperative owners and the main worker cooperative, the Coop.

Since the 80s we’ve heard constant complaints about the decrease of work struggles, the defeat of trade unions, the birth of negotiations and of a new trade unionism that imposes its rules on the working class hand in hand with the bosses. Yet, the disappearance of work struggles, at least in terms of quantity, isn’t only the result of a new culture of resignation infecting the working classes. It is also the result of a deliberate decision made by the confederate trade unions: to abandon single struggles without attempting a unifying strategy that would impose a viewpoint different from the one the bosses have imposed on the working classes.

The logistics workers’ mobilisations represent an important watershed that has made the word “strike” meaningful again – as it was at the dawn of the working class movement, when a strike was an actual weapon to injure the enemy. The March 22 strike has vindicated rights and dignity so far denied – as human beings first of all, and only secondly as workers. “Dignity” was the word most commonly heard at the four pickets outside the workplaces’ gates. The same dignity has allowed the workers to bring an entire country to a halt – a country used to the comfort and “beauty” of its shopping malls. From March 22 we should all ask ourselves how that beauty has been created, by whom, and in what conditions. The “theatre of wealth and opulence” is carried on the shoulders of the distribution workers employed in conditions of semi-slavery, and through the destruction of the private lives of the workers forced to work on public holidays. What we’re saying is there are workers who are exploited like slaves to guarantee a good image and profit for the bosses. It’s this demand for dignity that has made the workers unmovable, even in the face of threats from the police.

We need to start again from here: we need for these struggles not to remain isolated, but to spread to other industries. The confederate trade unions strategy doesn’t work anymore, and where it still does, it hasn’t got much time left. We are referring to the idea of utilising strikes and other forms of struggles in a bid for negotiations that in reality only manage to postpone layoffs for a few months or a couple of years maximum, gaining slight concessions in the way workers are disposed of. This approach is just a temporary protection inevitably destined to defeat. We know the logistics workers’ struggle is scaring people and the silence of the media shows it: despite weeks of campaigning, the only mention of it in the media was a report of the clashes that took place on Via Emilia and of a worker being run over by a truck driver who wanted to break a blockade. Nothing new here: the search for sensationalist news is the fundamental characteristic of an ever more disappointing and ever more widespread way of doing journalism.

The traditional trade unionism’s strategy was made explicit at the blockade outside the Interporto, where the CGIL attemped to force the blockade to allow its members to scab the strike. Thus, the Interporto strike was a crossroads, where everyone finally made it clear which side of the barricade they were on - workers and their demands on one side, bosses and vested interests on the other. March 22 has certainly been a watershed, at least for the region of Emilia Romagna. In the feedback collected in companies around Modena people talk of those times when the pickets were organised by the same trade unions that now hide themselves pretending not to see, and even trying to break up, the pickets. These trade unions haven’t called for a strike worthy of the name for too long, and their top personnel even dare get offended when they are accused of acting as “firefighters” for the bosses!

In conclusion, the March 22 strike has taught us some important lessons. Those who were wondering if the working class is still able to organise effective struggles now have some answers. Of course it will be essential to monitor how widely and deeply this struggle will manage to spread and take root; and in what measure it will be a successful model, able to spread to other industries. One of its significant elements was the ability of the autonomous trade union S.I. Cobas workers to connect with other social elements, who sided with them in mobilisations, strikes and in the face of the police batons. Thanks to their openness, the logistics workers have managed to achieve an agreement with other sectors of precarious workers, which has contributed to the success of March 22. These last few days of struggle demand new reflections to be made on the division between capital and work. It will be fundamental to consider in our analysis new elements we can’t overlook anymore, seeing as we’re in the face of events that are far from being isolated nor limited to a single industry.

Original by InfoAut.

Italy Calling:  http://italycalling.wordpress.com

italy calling
- Homepage: http://italycalling.wordpress.com

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech