After the referenda
International Viewpoint #246 June 1993 elections. To obtain that right, one has to collect about 60,000 signatures during a period of one year. The June Movement has begun collection of signatures, but it seems unlikely that they will succeed. This has to do also with the fact that the June Movement has conducted a media rather
AFTER the referenda of April 18, a new government - headed by the than a real mass campaign based on activiformer governor of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Campi - was formed ties. It claims to have 3,500 members.
in Italy. It is supported by a narrow majority, composed of the four
Thus, much depends on the possibility of finding a formula which can unite the traditional government parties - the Christian Democrats (DC), the competing movements in the next Euro-
Socialist Party (PSI), the Social Democratic Party (PSDI) and the Liberals pean elections. As for Enhedslisten, it will
(PLI). But it also enjoys the abstention with favor of the Republicans (PRI), be impossible to collect 60,000 signatures.
the Greens, the Party of the Democratic Left (PDS, ex-PCI) and even the
The only possible way to stand in the elections will be in co-operation with the 'no movements. However, this will also invol-
The Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), on the far-left, and the ve a political problem.
Social Movement (MSI), on the far-right, voted against the new
The arguments of the principal no government. The "Rete" (the network), which considers parliament movements changed for the better compaillegitimate, did not participate in the vote.
red to last year, partly because of the real impact of the referendum on the rest of
Italy now has a kind of government of national solidarity, with anti-
Europe. Then, the main argument was that worker leanings, which could constitute a transition towards
Denmark should have some exemptions conservative, and perhaps outright reactionary, solutions.
and allow the other countries to go ahead.
This time, the argument was that a Danish
FRANCO TURIGLIATTO* - Milan, May 16, 1993 vote would put an end to the whole Maastricht construction and that the new debates must define the future European collaboration. The Europe of Maastricht was criticised for being closed to other European countries, undemocratic, centralised and bureaucratic. However, a clear alternative was not - and could not be presented.
It is also quite possible that Denmark will have yet another referendum in 1997.
The Maastricht Treaty envisages a new inter-governmental conference in 1996 to redefine the future of the Community.
Much of the discussion here has centred around the so-called exemptions that were given to Denmark at the Edinburgh summit last December. Included, were the right to stay outside the common defence policy and the third phase of the Economic and Monetary Union.
However, these rights already existed in the Maastricht Treaty. What is new, is that the political parties promise that if a parliamentary majority — later — want
Denmark to take part in the integration on these levels, then it must be approved by a
Thus, if the process of European integration continues without major problems, and if there is pressure from the Community and from the Danish political establishment; there will be one or several new referendums in Denmark in the coming years.
This is certainly interesting, because it was the so-called Edinburgh exemptions that were used as the 'carrot' - enticing the necessary amount of people to change from 'no' to 'yes'. *
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Northern League.
TALY has neither escaped the contradictions of the current phase of the capitalist economy, nor the international recession. To be sure, the devaluation of the lira by about 30% in relation to the strong European currencies, which accompanied Italy's exit from the European Monetary System (EMS), has made Italian products more competitive and has led to a considerable growth in exports (of more than 30% to non-European countries and in a significant way to the other countries of the European Community (EEC)).
But this growth of exports has not prevented a generalised stagnation. Forecasts point to a growth in Gross National Product (GNP) in 1993 of 0.3% compared to 0.9% in 1992. Industrial production has dropped 4.5% over the last few months compared to the same period in 1992, and there is no improvement on the horizon.
And if the devaluation has not sparked increased inflation, this is easily explained. Salaries have been frozen since the middle of last year, following the elimination of the sliding scale and the drastic limitation of additional work contracts at the enterprise level. Their growth has lagged 2% behind that of inflation, thus provoking a shrinkage of consumption, in its turn a factor contributing to recession.
On the employment front, the situation remains gloomy. In 1992, 7% of jobs in large-scale industry were eliminated. The unemployment rate is nearing 11.2%, with forecasts predicting a rate of 11.6% for the second half of the year. In the short-term, there will be some 3 to 4 million unemployed (the figures are rather inexact, since the official bureau of statistics has changed the criteria to "reduce" the real number of unemployed). As for technical unemployment, it has increased by 45% in relation to
Thus, poverty, marginalisation and unemployment are threatening ever-widening sectors of the population, and creating a climate of uncertainty and social malaise.
From a political point of view, the April 18 vote incontestably constituted a success for the bourgeoisie.! The proposal to replace, with respect to the Senate, the proportional electoral system with a single round majority vote was accepted by a cru-
Almost all the political leaders, with the help of the media, nourished the foolish belief that changing the electoral system would solve all the problems, especially that of generalised corruption.2
This operation is part of the Italian
* The author is a member of the PRC and a supporter of the Fourth Internationalist journal Bandiera Rossa.
1. There were eight referenda, but only two or three had political importance. The passage of the question on the abrogation of the law on the financing of parties was foretold. With a relative majority of 55%, the articles of the law on drugs which called for prison and forced hospitalisation of addicts were struck down. This was the only question which was initiated by the left.
2. We will not return to the corruption and scandals which have been in the headlines of the Italian press over the last year, and have been the focal point of the whole regime's crisis. We need only recall that it has been revealed that the former PCI, now the PDS, is much more implicated in the scandal than thought just a few months ago.
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International Viewpoint #246 June 1993 bourgeoisie's plan to equip itself with a political system that guarantees a stronger and more authoritarian executive power and a less costly party system. They hope to put an end to the order which emerged after the end of the Second World War, which gave the PCI-led opposition some influence over the government in exchange for its moderating influence on mass
This project has progressed insofar as the working class movement has suffered serious defeats in recent years, seen its organizational structures greatly weakened and been unable to advance any serious social or political alternative to the hegemony of the dominant classes. The PDS has greatly contributed to this state of affairs, by giving credibility in left milieu to the bourgeois project of renewal through changes in the electoral law.
The governmental crisis at the end of April was cut short with the decision of the president of the Republic (who is behaving more and more in a semi-Bonapartist fashion) to reject the demand of the left opposition (PRC and Rete) for new legislative elections to take place in the short-term. This left opposition believes that the current parliament, in which about 300 members face charges, is no longer legiti-
Ciampi, a non-practising Catholic who always carried a big stick in his capacity as governor of the Bank of Italy, is a clear expression of the class nature of the new government and of the bourgeoisie's desire to more directly assume, through the intermediary of reliable people, the political running of the country.
At the same time, the make-up of the government is equally significant insofar as it mixes continuity and "innovation" in a supposed political turnaround. The traditional government parties (DC, PSI, PDS and PLI) continue to play a central role. The DC, for example, has kept the most important ministries: the Interior, Finance,
Foreign Affairs, National Education, and so on. Other ministers are 'technicians' that is to say, experts who should be able to guarantee smooth politico-administration, outside of the interests and pressures of the various parties. In other words, they should contribute to the government attempt to escape social pressures and the influence of the class struggle.3
In as much as the Ciampi government sees itself as an innovator, it is not only looking for active support from the employers confederation (Confindustria) but also for a favourable reception from the Greens and the PDS - who have been inexorably sucked into the governmental
It should be said that to begin with the PDS had even agreed that three of its members should become ministers. They only withdrew this commitment after the outpouring of popular indignation which followed the majority vote in the Chamber of Deputies against the incrimination of the former Socialist leader Craxi, who had become a symbol of the corruption of political parties.
For its part, the Northern League, after invoking fire and fury against the new prime minister, had a change of heart at the last minute and abstained. Indeed, the liberal economic programme of the new government corresponds to its own. Moreover, as the former governor of the Bank of Italy, Ciampi enjoys the confidence of the League's small and middle-bourgeois electorate which was able to turn its tax evasion into handsome Treasury bond holdings.
The programme of the new government is entirely in keeping with that of the Amato government which — supported by the Confindustria and the Bank of Italy, accepted by the union bureaucracy and faced with no real opposition from the PDS - was able to inflict serious blows on the working class movement. It eliminated the sliding scale of wages, implemented ultra-liberal reforms in the healthcare and pension system, and unleashed the privatisation of state industry.
As such, Ciampi, the enthusiastic partisan of Maastricht, will attempt to put in place the following programme:
• A new taxation system which, to the detriment of working people, will collect
• Bring forward the budget to July (it was planned for autumn), with the aim of pursuing and deepening a programme of rigourous austerity and reducing the public deficit and indebtedness (which remains greater than 100% of GNP);
• Continue the elimination of the so-called structural rigidities of the functioning of the labour market and business. In other words, giving the green light to firings and the complete deregulation of the labour market;
• Encourage the massive intervention of private capital in the health care and pension systems;
• Proceed with the sale of state enterprises.
In spite of this openly pro-capitalist programme, the three main union federations (CGIL, CISL, UIL) have supported the government and participated enthusiastically in the privatisation of the pension system.
Working people are facing frontal attacks. The measures imposed by the government a few months ago, which were unsuccessfully opposed, have weighed heavily in social and economic terms Unemployment nurtures demoralisation and discouragement. The union oppositions have not been strengthened either organisationally or politically. They are not seen as being able to provide credible alternative leadership, and have not been able to assemble the capacity for initiative necessary for the revival of the mass
The demonstration of February 27 could not on its own rekindle working class resistance.4 For their part, on April 2 the three union confederations - who were in favour of the elimination of the system of proportional representation — called for a symbolic "general" strike of four hours with no demands, conceived in fact as a way to support the new government! The union oppositions, as much in the Confederations as outside them, were not able to unmask this bureaucratic
3. The leader of the CGIL opposition wrote. "...the interests of the dominant classes have been hidden behind the smokescreen of technical expertise. In this way, the members of the government know that while they are ever less representative they are also ever more in control."
4. The demonstration of February 27 was organized by the Councils Movement and was a tremendous success. The PRC played a big role.
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International Viewpoint #246 June 1993 manoeuvre, to develop an alternative platform of struggle, or to initiate their own mobilisations.
It is true that in several regions some very serious struggles have developed in defense of jobs. From the miners of Sulcis in Sardinia to the workers at Alenia, a large industrial group producing armaments and electronic goods in Naples and Turin, these struggles have received the support of the population in the South. But they have remained isolated, without any type of co-ordination.
It is not at all surprising that, in current conditions, these struggles have only provided evidence of popular desperation and have generally concluded with very unfavourable agreements for the workers and, in some cases, outright defeats. Serious confrontations are on their way in the big steel group ILVA, on which the EC has imposed a programme of drastic restructuring, as well as at Alfa Romeo in Milan. Fiat's plan is to close this establishment — which it bought at a cut-rate price a few years ago (the union committee at Alfa Romeo has requested an investigation into this) - which is known for its great technical capacity and for the militancy of its workers.
For a long time, the three union confederations have been caught up in a process of integration into the mechanisms of the capitalist system and state, and have completely internalized the capitalist ideology of the market. The elimination of working class gains has been carried out in the name of increasing the productivity of Italian enterprises against foreign competition.
At the same time, the attitude of the bureaucrats towards the workers has grown increasingly arrogant. All decisions are imposed from on high, with complete disdain for even the semblance of union democracy.
The CISL and UIL haven't had great difficulty implementing such practices. On the other hand, the CGIL has had some problems. It has a different tradition, based on class struggle, with a more active rank and file; the opposition has a real audience among the workers.
Thus, the CGIL leaders have to manoeuvre with a greater finesse, take initiatives every now and then, and blame the other confederations for their capitulations — invoking the need to maintain unity. In the last analysis, the CIGL now finds itself caught in its own contradictions: for years, it presented itself as the incarnation of class struggle unionism, and now has to pay a higher price than the others for its renunciation of social conflict and the defense of the workers' interests - and 16 for the resulting decline in struggle.
The CGIL now has to deal with, among other things, the offensive of the secretary general of CISL, D' Antoni, who has proposed to form a single moderate union - which would become a veritable institution of the government, definitively breaking with a class struggle approach and replacing democratic relations with the workers with the complete delegation of powers to a leadership group in which the apparatus of the CISL would be hegemo-
The UlL, led by Larizza, has proposed another version: a union that would sup port the progressive democratic regroupment which is supposed to emerge, and would operate as an internal lobby whose goal would be securing for its members parliamentary seats and political responsi-
The CGIL leadership is neither willing nor able to counter these proposals with the idea of a new beginning for militant class struggle unionism. It has to defend the interests of its apparatus, but the dynamics of the political situation compel it to sign up for the single union project of D' Antoni and Larizza - even though this project is currently only on the drawing
Since last autumn's protests, Essere Sindacato, the CGIL's internal opposition, has not been able to develop an alternative adapted to the social and political difficulties of the current period. The initiative it had is now on the decline. It did not have the strength or, in its majority, the will to orient itself directly to the working masses by going around the traditional apparatuses and breaking, if need be, the discipline of the confederation. Internally, certain sectors elected to limit their initiatives, in the vain hope that they would be able to build a new majority with some members of the union leadership linked to the PDS.
As far as the Councils Movement is concerned, which was behind the initiative for certain important mobilisations - in particular the February 27 demonstration — it should be underlined that this is an entirely different phenomenon from what occurred in the 1970s and the early 1980s.
Today, the Councils Movement is above all a union sector, with 90% of its members from the CGIL, and identifying for the most part with Essere Sindacato. It is very rare that the united CGIL-CISLUIL symbol reflects a mass self-organisational reality comparable to that of a decade ago — not to speak of what was seen even further in the past. In most cases, the councils have not been re-elected for years and the electoral mechanisms are such that they ensure the artificial representation of the appratuses.
The February 27 demonstration provided an opportunity to build and radicalize the councils at the workplaces. But these possibilities have yet to be harnessed. Alongside the terrible objective difficulties, another obstacle consists of the majority orientation of the national co-ordination of councils.
This orientation aims at influencing the policy of the CGIL leadership, with the old idea — condemned to failure - of exerting pressure on the heights of the union. The end result is that of being heavily conditioned by the 'left' apparatus of the confederation.
As such, the same people who had wanted to limit the initiative of Essere Sindacato did not at all try to develop the
International Viewpoint #246 June 1993 potential of the councils movement. As far as those sectors outside the traditional unions are concerned, there are two types of attitude:
• Certain forces, such as the FLMU, who came out of a split of CIL steelworkers, and the Rank and File Representation (RDB), have denounced the reactionary character of the CISL-CGIL-UIL policy; but they have remained outside of the autumn movement, going so far as to desert the mass mobilisations.
• The Rank and File Committees (COBAS) of industrial sectors, especially those of the two big Milan enterprises, Alfa Romeo and Ansaldo, and that of Alfa Romeo in Pomigliano (near Naples), have created a national structure, the Union of Self-Organized Workers (SLA) - which does not present itself as a real union, but rather as a coordinating structure and above all as a force for promoting the self-organisation of workers, as a pre-condition for the building of a new mass class
The SLA has real roots in certain cases, but remains a minority force. This union sector was at the head of last autumn's initiatives, participated in all the mobilisations, including those called by the bureaucracy, and has generally sought out unity in action with other union oppositional forces. It hasn't yet been able, however, to be integrated into the councils movement since the councils have not allowed them to join, preferring to stick to the CGIL-CSIL-UIL schema, even though they no longer represent the workers in
The PRC, the Councils Movement and the union oppositions are seeking to revive the social movement through the collection of signatures for the abrogation of three pieces of legislation enacted under the Amato government: the counter-reform on pensions; the reforms of the healthcare system; and the privatisation of public
A fourth referendum concerns Article 19 of the Workers Statutes - adopted in the beginning of the 1970s — which deals with union representation in the enterprises and gives the CGIL, CIL and UIL a monopoly on representation by preventing workers from actively taking part in the decisions that concern them.
The CISL, UlL and the majority of the CGIL are against this referendum; sectors of the CGIL apparatus have shown weak support. On this question, there are serious differences between the COBAS and the councils. The councils are collecting signatures around two formulae, one which calls for the plain and simple abolition of the monopoly of the bureaucratic apparatuses, the other which only calls for changes in its form. The COBAS and the SLA are collecting signatures around the first for-
At the same time, the CIL leadership is gathering signatures for popular initiative legislation on union representation, which changes certain norms without touching the main body of the system.
The situation is very confused, and it is difficult to forecast the outcome. The needs of the mass movement and the political concerns of the most conscious union members can be summarised in a few points. It is on this basis that the possibility of assembling a response to the challenge of the Ciampi government will be determi-
• The ability to break the isolation of the workers currently involved in struggles for the defense of their jobs — to link them with others, to pursue more radical forms of struggle such as factory occupations, and to build broader solidarity between workers and the wider society.
• A revival of Essere Sindacato's initiative in favour of a co-ordination of workers in struggle today, to strengthen the opposition inside CGIL and at the same time to build links with autonomous unionism. There should also be work to reactivate the Councils Movement and resist the pressures of the apparatuses.
• In this framework, it is possible to advance the idea of building a generalized struggle in defense of employment and for the reduction of the working week without reduction in pay. In Italy, the last reduction of the working week was in 1970. Since that time, industrial productivity has increased annually by 1.8% and created a massive growth in unemployment. At the same time, it is necessary to demand a rise in salaries to compensate for the elimination of the sliding scale.
• The union oppositions must respond to the conservative project for the single union'. To defend the CGIL as a bastion of class struggle unionism is not only utopian, but is not at all credible. The struggle inside the CGIL must be fought to the end But this is not sufficient. There is a great risk that once the CGIL leadership gets caught up in the conservative wave there will not be adequate forces to propose an alternative programme, and that the left will be marginalised and will have to build
The development of unity among the union oppositions is a political precondition for the formation of an alternative leadership group which will be able to organise - with real mass roots - a broad democratic constituent assembly in opposition to the apparatus unionism of
Now that we have a less democratic political system and a crisis situation in the working class movement, a party like the PRC faces enormous problems. Until this point, this party has been above all else the party of political and social resistance, asserting the need (in a generic sense) of rebuilding a communist force.
Today it is being called upon to give some real content to its name, through the elaboration of an anti-capitalist strategy, and by moving from resistance to the construction of a mass movement - to discuss and develop a political and strategic line which can rise to the situation. These are the issues in the preparatory debate for the PRC's next congress, scheduled for the autumn. *
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