ITALY
Huge
attack on
welfare
launched
ON THURSDAY September 10, 1992 the two-month-old Italian coalition government of prime minister Giuliano Amato announced a sweeping series of austerity measures designed to shore up its credibility in the face of a foreign exchange crisis.
Italian workers have reacted with a wave of mobilizations unprecedented in recent history LIVIO MAITAN - September 17, 1992
TALY faces its most severe crisis since the Second World War. The political situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse since the elections last April. These revealed both the exhaustion of the four-party government - comprising the Christian Democrats (DC), Italian Socialist Party (PSI), the Italian Social Democratic party (PDSI) and the Italian Liberal Party (PLI) and the absence of any credible alternative.
This situation marked the election of a new president by parliament and the laborious efforts to form a new government. The new president - Christian Democrat Oscar Luigi Scalfaro — was elected only after a long series of attempts in which a range of apparently more qualified candidates had fallen. The new government under PSI leader Guiliano Amato was finally ratified for lack of anything better and under cover of supposed changes in the procedure for handing out ministries and with the inclusion of "experts" who are meant to show the government's increased independence of the parties.
The crisis has been made worse by the eruption of corruption scandals involving politicians and by a number of spectacular attacks by organized crime. Almost all the parties are implicated in the scandals, 8 including the Democratic Party of the
Left (PDS - formed by the majority of the former Communist Party). However the main culprits have been the two main parties of coalition government, the DC and PSI. Also involved are business people, managers and bankers as well as a wide range of speculators and wheeler-dealers.
In fact, outright corruption aside, favours and bribery have been commonplace for a long time. They were only denounced when the ruling layers felt they threatened the overall functioning of a political framework serving their interests. However, as the economic situation has got tighter and the regime has demonstrated its utter uselessness, critical voices started to make themselves heard, even before the spectacular investigations of a number of Milan judges.
Crime, of course, is hardly a novelty either. However the mafia's recent exploits, in particular a series of terrorist assassinations, have strikingly underlined the fact that whole regions of the country are still outside the control of the central government. In these regions an "illegal" — but far from marginal - capitalist accumulation is taking place, while a symbiosis is being created between criminal undertakings and official institutions at every level.
For as long as the regime enjoyed a certain stability, this situation could be tolerated, especially since the government parties, and above all the DC and PSI, enjoyed its electoral benefits. In the present generalized crisis, however, it has turned into a further source of conflicts and splits.
Recession and public debt
The political crisis takes place against a background of persisting economic stagnation. As elsewhere, the expected recovery has failed to arrive and a further plunge by industry into recession is possible. Furthermore, the entire international press has noticed Italy's massive public debt, which has reached more than 100% of Gross National Product (GNP) and the budget deficit, which is more than 11% of
To deal with this, the government and the most influential sections of business have taken or are contemplating drastic measures including increased taxes (and tax collection), attacks on social gains such as pensions and sickness benefits, a wage policy which implies a wage freeze and the reorganization of wage indexation so that it no longer compensates for infla-
On the political level, they are promoting institutional reforms and changes to electoral laws to do away with proportional representation to allow coalitions with only a relative majority to form a comfortable absolute majority in parliament. The aim of all these operations is to increase the power of the executive both at central and local level.
A constitutional revision commission of members of the two chambers has already been set up. The idea is to hold new elections as soon as the changes have been adopted in the hope that these will produce stable governments at least in the medium term.
Meanwhile, the present coalition has increasingly resorted to government by decree and delegation, which have reduced parliament's decision-making powers (without wholly abolishing them). On September 9 Amato went so far as to demand that parliament grant him special powers for three years to tackle the economy.
It is evident that such schemes cannot go forward or come to fruition without the connivance of the bulk of the political and union organizations that claim to defend the interests of the working class.
### Left parties implicated
Let us pass briefly over the PSI, which supports a government led by one of its members. The same attitude is shared in essentials by those Socialists who have come together to challenge — for the first time in years - the autocratic style of the party's secretary and former prime minis-
However, the PDS is also paving the way for those who wish to install a reactionary regime. In fact, this party to a great extent accepts the proposed institutional and electoral reforms, for example, the direct election of mayors — who would thus be freed from any control by local councils - or the abandonment of proportional representation in its present form. On economic issues it criticizes some of the government's decisions and proposals but has abstained from the fight to reverse them. Indeed the party's right wing has even come out in favour of open support for Amato, in a perspective of participation in government.
All the trends came together at the start of August. On the last day of July -when most enterprises were closed or on the verge of closing for the holidays -the three union confederations signed a common declaration with the government. In this, the union side swallowed a whole series of government decisions, including the final abolition of wage indexation, the acceptance of wage controls and the abandonment of the traditional negotiating practices at enterprise level.
The first reaction of PDS leader
THE measures announced by the Amato government include new rises in taxes and sharp cuts in the budget and social security -
October 12, 1992
ITALY fied their own repudiation of discipline from above.
It is not yet known if this will result in disciplinary measures against Essere sinan increased proportion of the population will only be partly eligible for the latter — a rise in the age of retirement (65 for men, 60 for women) a wage freeze and a freeze on hiring in the public sector until the end of 1993. If these plans are implemented a middle income family will pay an additional $1,000 in taxes.
Workers' protests came swiftly. As soon as the measures had been announced strikes broke out, whether spontaneous or called by union branches or rank-and-file committees, particularly in the
Milan region. The pressure of these actions forced the union confederations to move. They accused the government of violating the July 31 agreement (see accompanying article) and called for a series of mobilizations including rotating regional strikes.
However, the widespread demands for a general strike have not been taken up by union leaders, who fear the dynamic this might unleash. Nonetheless, the first regional strikes in Tuscany, Lombardy and Emilia (the region centred on Bologna) have been strongly supported and have been accompanied by big demonstrations - 100,000 in Milan and Florence and about 50,000 in
Almost everywhere the union leaders have been challenged, and in some cases were unable to speak. CGIL leader Trentin was violently denounced at the Florence rally. The government, bosses and political parties have made a hue and cry about this, talking about a return to the terrorism of the 1970s.
However, it is hardly reasonable to reproach workers for hissing at bureaucrats who have shamelessly violated democratic mandates or for refusing to accept that only these same bureaucrats can speak. In Milan a demand by Alfa Romeo workers to be able to address the assembly was turned down and they decided to organize their own meeting at the edge of the main crowd.
In any event, these mobilizations are the biggest seen since the
1970s, with a public sector general strike planned for October 2-
L. M. September 24, 1992. *
Occhetto was to criticize the attitude of the union leaders. However the PDS rapidly toned down its criticisms and condemned the attitude of the opposition inside the unions which was demanding the cancellation of the agreement and a decision-making consultation of the workers. The PDS supported to the hilt CGIL general secretary Bruno Trentin, who explained he had signed to avoid a government crisis.
The July 31 affair marks an important turning point in the evolution of the union movement. Trentin signed even though his union leadership had come out against the agreement. This blatant violation of elementary democratic norms met with a fierce reaction from the minority Essere sindacato ("Being a unionist") tendency, which demanded a consultation of the rank-and-file with the power to accept or reject the agreement. This position was shared by many local and sectoral union bodies, and, after the holidays, by workers' assemblies in many enterprises. The
CGIL majority was also split.
After the signature, Trentin resigned.
However, this was a manoeuvre to force acceptance of the fait accompli. The
CGIL's Steering Committee, while continuing to put forward criticisms of the document, signalled at the start of September its decision to sign, rejected any notion of withdrawing from the agreement and appealed to Trentin to reconsider his resignation. Which, having got what he wanted, he duly did. The PDS leaders, meanwhile, assured Trentin and his bureaucratic majority of their support.
The Steering Committee also backed the idea of consulting the rank-and-file but in a form that emptied it of its content. The issue of the signing of the agreement was not to be on the agenda at such assemblies, whose discussions were to centre on future negotiations with the government and employers on wages and were to have no decision-making powers.
Essere sindacato rejected the Steering Committee decisions, announced that its representatives would be withdrawing from leadership positions and launched a grassroots campaign against the government's measures, for the cancellation of the CGIL's signature and for wage demands at enterprise level. According to this grouping the way Trentin had ridden roughshod over internal democracy justidacato supporters — some on the majority side have called for them - or if such measures would provoke a split. In fact, many of the most militant workers have resigned from the CGIL and some enterprise and other organizations have decided to cease dues payments to the confederation centre.
Militants consider future
The discussion has been opened in Essere sindacato and it is possible that it will lead to a split supported by some hundreds of thousands of workers. In any case, in the sombre panorama of today's workers' movement, Essere sindacato is one point of support for organizing workers' resistance and creating the conditions for a counter-attack.
Another is the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) whose militants are involved in Essere sindacato. In recent months the PRC has been the only serious left opposition force. It is true that, apart from its participation in Essere sindacato, in independent union groupings, in the Cobas (rank and file workers committees) and its influence in some big workplaces — in particular Alfa Romeo in Milan — the PRC has not yet established stable social links despite its electoral strength. It continues, furthermore, to pay a price for a medium and long term strategy and an internal regime that does not permit it to use all the militant energies available.
Nonetheless, in the present battles the PRC has shown itself to be a class struggle force which is also able to wage a firm struggle in parliament against the government. Furthermore, on September 12 it organized a national demonstration against government policies, the capitulation of the union bureaucracy and for the defence of living standards and a general
The success surpassed all expectations; around 100,000 people took part amid a militant atmosphere and a strong involvement of youth. Essere sindacato leader Fausto Bertinotti, still formally a PDS member, spoke.
A week previously the PDS organized a demonstration in Milan — in which the Milan federation of the PRC decided to participate with its own slogans. This brought out less than 50,000. This does not, of course, necessarily provide a reliable indication of the overall balance of forces, but it did show that the PRC has increased its ability to mobilize forces 9 around quite radical objectives. *
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An explosion of anger
October 12, 1992