The trade-union bureaucrats, like the Communist Party press, did not hesitate to present the success of the strike as a victory by the unions over the COBAS. This was a very premature judgment. On the eve of the strike itself, union leaders had to register a new loss of prestige in air transport. Rank-and-file bodies carried off a fully successful strike at Rome airport, the country's largest, ignoring a united appeal from the three union confederations. Two days after the general strike, the train drivers' COBAS launched a strike that almost totally paralyzed the railroads.
Still more important, the COBAS in various sectors (education, rail, postal service, subways) have called a demonstration for December 12 in Rome against any restriction of the right to strike. This action will be an important test of the influence of the COBAS and of the weight of the more militant sectors today in the Italian trade union movement. *
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