Italy: thousands strike against Berlusconi
5 December 2004

On 30 November Italian workers came out on strike against the latest budget proposals put forward by the government of Silvio Berlusconi. Referred to in Italian as a "general strike", it was in fact a four-hour national stoppage, this being extended to eight hours in the state sector, such as the post offices.

The strike was militant and included 70 demonstrations in the main cities. In Milan, 100,000 workers hit the streets, while in Venice 40,000 people protested despite serious flooding of Piazza San Marco. Airports, banks, hospitals, public transport and post offices were brought to a standstill. Worker adhesion was high, averaging 80% and hitting peaks of 90-100% in some sectors.

Workers struck against drastically declining living standards, hence for higher pay and against what is evidently an industrial decline in Italy, a trend which Berlusconi's budgets have done nothing to assuage. Indeed, Berlusconi's high-profile finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, was sacked in July this year for his failure to do anything except square the circle of state accounts in his own head by moving around imaginary figures involving nonexistent sums of money.

In the meantime, Italy's strategic sectors were in steep declline, as was seen over the last few years with the Fiat crisis and, most recently, in the near bankruptcy of the national airline, Al Italia. Berlusconi's budget proposals involve a series of tax reductions for the well-off, a measure which even his own allies, including his new finance minister, Domenico Siniscalco, admit the state cannot afford, but which they are forced to vote, since Berlusconi has threatened new elections if his proposal (a battle cry on which he stands or falls) is not passed. The recent European and local elections show that, as things stand, the right stands to lose if the country goes to the polls.

Workers, however, have had enough, and were more than ready to vent their rage in an important show of strength. Indeed, this strike was long overdue and represents a reappearance of the Italian working class as a major force following the mass movements of March 2002 and the powerful one-day general strike of April that year. Following those events, leadership of the main trade union, the CGIL, passed from Sergio Cofferati to Guglielmo Epifani.

This was an important transition, since Cofferati was trained in a militant rhetorical current of the bureaucracy of the Italian communist party, whereas Epifani has closer links with the more evidently soave bourgeois tradition of the left wing of the socialist party. The chronic passivity which now marks the CGIL can certainly be explained in part by this shift in leadership: Epifani is completely lacking in get-up-and-go and he hides behind a fetishising of trade union unity in order to hand over leadership of the workers' movement to the chiefs of the two much smaller and more right-wing organisations.

These are Savino Pezzotta, boss of the catholic CISL (and, thanks to Epifani's abdication, now to all intents and purposes spokesperson for the Italian workers' movement), and Luigi Angeletti, top dog of the tiny UIL. Angeletti has openly declared himself to be a coward: having sold out his own members on the question of unfair dismissals, he faced the music by stressing that he felt forced to sign the accord because "this government frightens me". He nevertheless takes courage from people like George Bush, whose imperialist war he actually supports.

Italian workers are nostalgic for the Cofferati days, but shouldn't be, since the end of his mandate only meant that he didn't have to demobilise the movement before it got out of his control. Cofferati fully supported the candidacy of Epifani, and the latter was chosen unanimously by the CGIL bureaucracy for the purpose of undermining worker militancy. Cofferati was subsequently identified as the "new leader of the left" and in fact made one or two steps in that direction.

But he soon backed off, deciding instead to run for the office of mayor of Bologna, to which he was easily elected last June. In short, in the same way that Epifani has handed over leadership of the unions to Pezzotta, Cofferati has left the political leadership of the left to another christian democrat, Romano Prodi, who has made his reappearance in Italy following the end of his tenure as president of the European commission.


In other words, it is the CGIL bureaucratic machine as a whole, Cofferati included, which lies behind the demobilisation of the powerful movement of 2002. Hence just a year after Berlusconi had come back to office with the largest parliamentary majority in the history of the Italian republic, and just when the bosses were getting ready for a series of major attacks under the most reactionary government since Mussolini, the CGIL bureaucracy ran for cover and began to demobilise its members.

Indeed, the present major strike comes on the wave of a betrayal over pensions. As Berlusconi and his delinquent allies abolish the succession tax for the rich and give amnesties instead of heavy fines or jail sentences to their ally gangsters and speculators who have built disgusting and illegal properties along Italy's spectacular coastlines, workers now have to slave for forty years (as distinct from the previous 35) before they can retire.

Despite any amount of threatening bellows by the three main union leaders during the summer over what would happen if the "reform" passed in parliament, nothing was done to mobilse workers to defend this crucial historical gain. Pensions were mentioned by Epifani at the Milan demonstration of 30 November, but only as part of yet another of his moralising lists whose content is invariably "Look what this government is doing to us!" He stated that "Berlusconi promised to increase the minimum pension to 500 euro per month while 4.5 million people still live below this minimum".

He's right, but apart from his overall tendency to state the obvious, it is thanks to precisely his passivity that Berlusconi's measure was approved without resistance. Also, to ask anyone, especially a retired worker, to live on 500 euro a month, and merely to point out that Berlusconi hasn't carried out this election promise, is an insult to the aged who have slaved all their lives and who now live in misery.

Apart from pensions, other measures against which workers struck include uncontrolled speculation on prices after the change-over to the euro. This has allowed big supermarket bosses, and even small shop owners and market stall holders, to ignore the ethics they demand from everyone else (on 4 December a poor pensioner dropped dead of a heart attack having been wrongly accused of stealing a salami from a Florence supermarket) and line their pockets at the expence of workers, whose real wages have been effectively slashed. Inflation reached levels of even 60% on some food items, whereas employers refused to renegotiate pay increases and even suspended agreements which had long since been reached. This explains the need for the courageous strike by Milan tram workers last christmas, a victorious fight despite Epifani, Pezzotta and Angeletti's best efforts to sell it out by going behind the workers' backs and agreeing a lower sum than the one which had already been agreed two years previously!

The 30 November strike also comes in the context of another major sellout by the swordless three musketeers, this time at Al Italia. Gross managerial ineptitude and corruption had brought the company to the verge of bankruptcy, but in October Epifani & Co saved the day for Berlusconi by citing the efficacy of the Lufthansa model, i.e. lower pay for an increase in working hours (!) for pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, to say nothing of mass sackings! Again, this was after a courageous battle by Al Italia staff who, however, failed to follow the example of the Milan tram workers and who therefore allowed their brilliant lightning strikes and walk-outs to culminate in a reopening of negotiations which had previously been refused by the government and by management, but which were then carried out by the three union bureaucrat stooges.

All this shows that the 30 November strike was strong and effective not because of Epifani, Pezzotta and Angeletti, but despite them. Not only did they do their best to limit the strike to four-hour shifts, but they kept it as non-general as possible by separating it from the teachers' strike, which took place on 15 November. Teachers (and students) came out for a badly needed 8% pay increase and against the Moratti reform.

The latter can be summed up as disinvestment in the school system, including giving state money to private schools. It also blocks the employment of full-time teachers in state schools, limits access to universities to those students who pass through the Lyceum high school system (those in the technical institutes now have to do an extra year at school if they want to go to university), and forces kids to make up their minds about their future when they are only 11 or 12 years old. This forces choices on parents based on the economic situation of the family at the time, and hence benefits the middle classes and the rich.

The teachers' strike was effective but could have been even stronger if it had formed part of the national stoppage and if there had been even greater participation on the part of high school teachers. Average adhesion was only about 70%. The backbone of the strike was the primary and medium school sectors. These are particularly effected by the Moratti reform, since it reduces teaching for kids by six hours under the pretext that parents can then choose six hours for kids among a selection of extra subjects.

Despite the fact that Letizia Moratti doesn't have the money to cover this reform, instead of dumping it she just imposes the first part, which means that there is effectively a reduction of teaching and learning by six hours. Moratti has also made French obligatory in the medium schools, without adding extra language teaching hours, all of which amounts to a reduction in teaching time for English. High school teachers are also directly affected by the reform, particularly in the Lyceums, where autonomous teaching initiatives and experiments are thwarted by an exaggerated homogenisation of the national syllabus.

The lower turnout on the part of high school teachers is not down to an innate conservatism on their part. Many of them are completely demoralised, not only by low pay, overwork and an uncertain future, but by the manner in which their protests have been bureaucratically controlled. For example, between 20 and 28 October strikes were limited to ridiculous one-hour stoppages, i.e. the first hour of lessons for teachers and the last hour of service for secretaries and caretakers. Strikes were also articulated region by region. On 20 October Basilicata and Friuli came out for an hour and this went on for eight days as all other regions got their turn.

This dispersive practice culminated in a work-to-rule by all staff on 29 October. But even this was impracticable on the ground, since these days nobody can clearly define what are and what are not one's strict duties. In those cases where teachers and school staff could be bothered to adhere to them, the only effect of these too numerous (October 2004 is just one of various examples), localised and disorganised strikes has been a loss of an hour's pay. The bureaucrats aim to frighten the government and the bosses into negotiation. But all the government does is take heart, as it knows that it is faced with the manoeuvres of an "adversary" who doesn't actually want a fight.

That said, things are not looking good for the Berlusconi government. It is racked by internal divisions and jealousies and has been abandoned even by the Confindustria. This has recently elected a new president, Luca Cordero di Montezzemolo, chosen as an expression of the large industrial and financial interests (he was the twinkle in the Agnelli family's eye at Fiat) over against the smaller industries represented by his predecessor, Antonio D'Amato, who had sold his soul to Berlusconi but who had got little in return (he wanted the virtual abolition of pensions, and the total right for bosses to rule in the factories, including the abolition of Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, i.e. defence against unfair dismissal).

It seems now, therefore, and even despite the passing of the pension reform, that the Confindustria under Montezzemolo is banking on a return of the centre-left headed by Prodi. Needless to say, however, it will support any anti-working class measures which Berlusconi manages to carry out in the year and a half which he still has left.

The question is: will Berlusconi last that long? Despite the vast parliamentary majority which props it up, this government should have fallen early last year. It plods along by virtue of precisely its massive supporting majority but also because the reformists of the Democratic Left (DL) and Rifondazione Comunista (RC), not to mention their christian democrat and socialist party allies, have chosen the path of least resistance. The DL leaders, Piero Fassino and Massimo D'Alema, continue to express their desire to play the game according to capitalist parliamentary rules, hence respecting the fact that Berlusconi "won the elections" and awaiting the next ballot box charade which, as they see it, they will win easily.

As for RC, this is going through even greater turmoil than the Berlusconi government. It is ravaged by leader Fausto Bertinotti's unsanctioned and irreconcilable declarations. On the one hand, he speaks out against "violence", which for him means the history of the working class' physical resistance to the organised might of the capitalists and their state machine. On the other, there is his statement following the kidnapping of two Italian relief workers in Iraq in September: on that occasion he suggested that the left's call for the removal of Italian troops from Nassirya be subordinated to the campaign to release the two hostages. Virtually none of Bertinotti's own members are convinced that the latter outburst was based on the need to free the hostages, since the nonsense of it needs no comment. It doesn't take much political acumen to see that this is the expression of an unhinged reformist who is seeking to convince the bosses that he can be "responsible" and hence that leading members of his party can take up ministerial posts in a future Prodi government. True to the social democratic tradition, for Bertinotti violence is acceptable once it is bourgeois and legal, and is unacceptable when carried out by workers and their allies.

But there is a real danger that, as Bush did in America, Berlusconi and the right will mobilise latent reactionary forces to stave off what in America was the passive and pusillanimous march of middle-class do-gooders and which, in Italy, takes the form of like-minded patronising middle-class catholics like Prodi in alliance with careerist Stalinists such as D'Alema, union bureaucrat no-hopers like Epifani, and loudmouthed ranters like Bertinotti.

This government must be sent packing by the power of the working class which, as the Milan tram workers showed last Christmas, can take control of its own strikes and win them having galvanised the support of petty bourgeois and middle class consumers and sympathisers, not by reticence and unwarranted compromise, but by taking on the bosses with courageous militancy and working class solidarity.