Al-Ahram Weekly | International | Labour fights back

		24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 International	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Labour fights back
Italy's labour movement has gained momentum since last July's anti-globalisation march in Genoa, writes Faiza Rady

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More than 1,000 workers of the Fiat factory of Termini Imerese, near Palermo in Sicily, participate in a demonstration in Rome to protest against the closure of the factory
Friday, working life came to a standstill in Italy as more than one million workers heeded the strike call of their trade union, the General Confederation of Italian Labour (CGIL) and took to the streets of 120 towns and cities. "We are here today to continue our fight against this government and to reaffirm our belief in the need to protect workers' rights, their salaries and their jobs," said CGIL unionist Pierpaolo Leonardi in Rome.
At stake is the projected amendment of the labour code, allowing lay-offs in certain job categories without showing "just cause". Another cause of discontent is Berlusconi's administration's conservative fiscal policies, which, according to union leaders, will eliminate 280,000 jobs. The lay-offs have already started, Italian companies recently announced that they were planning to sack some 20,000 redundant workers. The embattled Fiat plant in Turin would be the worst affected, with projected lay-offs of one- fifth of its workforce.
However, Friday's militant mass action already seems to have effected some changes. On Monday, the government announced plans to buy out the giant car maker that is hovering on the brink of bankruptcy. Fearing another round of major labour action, and remembering April's crippling strike of 13 million workers, both the government and the corporations seem to have backed down, for the time being.
Analysts believe that the militancy of recent Italian protests started during the anti- globalisation march in Genoa. In July of last year, the anti-globalisation crowd flooded the streets of Genoa to demonstrate against the neo- liberal agenda of the G-8. Armed with placards, cardboard shields and plastic swords, hundreds of thousands of protesters effectively challenged their formidable opponents, if only, through their urgency and the sheer weight of their numbers.
However, over and above strategic and conventional expressions of activism, Genoa signaled the emergence of new traits in the social make- up of the Italian protest movement. Besides including the traditional white working class and leftist backbone of the movement, the Genoa protesters also included a huge contingent of catholic activists recently radicalised through social work in an increasingly unequal and polarised society.
At an annual $24,500, Italy's GNP per capita ranks higher than both France and the UK among industrialised nations. However, unemployment levels in 2001 reached 9.3 per cent and youth unemployment exceeded 28 per cent.
In addition to the catholic newcomers, a crowd of African and Arab illegal workers also padded- out the ranks of the anti-globalisers. According to recent estimates, illegal workers constitute 23 per cent of the Italian workforce. Southern workers, marginalised youth, temporary workers and illegal workers all made their first and strongest showing at the Genoa protests.
Other relative neophytes were members of the radical left, who have a history of avoiding protest marches because of what they define as the "petit bourgeois" character of a leadership, traditionally dominated by conservative trade union cadres and intellectuals. Buoyed by the more militant make-up of the Genoa march which veered to the left of the established leftist parties, the radical left came out in force.
In this context, Genoa marked a turning point in the social composition of "dissidents". For the first time in the annals of the Italian protest movement, the bulk of marchers was made up of the modern version of the lumpenproletariat -- a creation of rampant neo-liberalism: illegal workers, Third Worlders, young and older "temps" all of whom live hand to mouth and precariously subsist on the fringes of a rich industrialised EU country. Within the EU, Italy is notorious for harbouring the largest population of illegal workers.
Radicalised by the contradiction of hovering at or below poverty levels in an otherwise affluent society and empowered by their collective presence on the streets, along with the more politically seasoned anti-globalisers, the lumpen Genoa marchers represented a new and different kind of challenge to the Berlusconi administration. While illegals may be tolerated in their sweat shops far from the maddening crowd, coming out and participating in the marches is a different ball game.
Given the circumstances, a head-on collision became inevitable. The government gave the police carte blanche, reportedly authorising them to use force at will against the demonstrators. Given the go-ahead, the police seemed to comply only too readily. For the first time in Italy's post-fascist history, the forces of law and order acted with little restraint, using "low intensity warfare" techniques similar to those used by the Israeli army against the Palestinians, reported Italian writer Toni Negri in the French monthly Le Monde Diplomatique. Contrary to standard crowd-control regulations, the police used live bullets. In the process, they killed a youth, Carlo Giuliani, the 19-year-old son of a trade unionist. Giuliani was the first martyr in the anti-globalisation struggle. Twenty-four hours after Guiliani's murder, the police went on another unprovoked rampage. Apparently enraged by the demonstrators' resistance, they assaulted and beat a group of protesters in their sleep, injuring hundreds. Representing a coalition between Berlusconi's right-wing Forza Italia party with the Northern League and the post-fascist National Alliance, this government showed its fascist colours in Genoa. It is noteworthy that the Italian government has since gained notoriety for being the most repressive and violent in the EU, writes Negri.
Despite the level of repression, or maybe because of it, the movement has gained additional impetus. In the aftermath of Genoa, mass demonstrations mushroomed, becoming a quasi- permanent feature of leftist political expression at the grass-roots level.
Disillusioned with the established centre-left social-democrats sitting in parliament and the more militant Left Democrats (DS), who both failed to effectively respond to the government's unprecedented crack-down in Genoa, a new leadership emerged. Referred to as the movimento dei girotondi (the circular movement) this leadership is made up of leftist women and men, joined by a number of prominent intellectuals.
Two months after Genoa, the movimento dei girotondi went to work. Following the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington, the Italian right organised a "demonstration of solidarity with the US flag" in support of the US- led war in Afghanistan. Responding to the show of support for the US-led warmongering , the movement organised a counter demonstration with hundreds of thousands marching in protest. The movement also came out in solidarity with illegal workers, who organised mass demonstrations against the Bossi-fini bill linking alien residency status to the possession of work contracts. Earlier this year, Southern workers organised the first "coloured" strike to protest discriminating job conditions for people of colour in Italy's thriving northern industrial sector.
"So far this year, official figures show that more than 25 million work hours have been lost to strikes and other work stoppages, a near 500 per cent increase in the same period as last year," reported the BBC.
Since Genoa, the strike and march momentum has evidently spiraled. Friday's strike of more than one million workers only confirms the trend.

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