These Strikes Are Useful
In these days of the first-past-the-post parliamentary system, general strikes no longer strike fear into the heart of the system or wipe out governments as they did in the good old days of PR. And there have certainly been enough strikes, general and not, since the Berlusconi government has been in power. All of them have been defensive strikes, attempts to prevent or halt the spread of such cancers as the Biagi labour law, pension reform, job security (including Article 18) and education reform. Not to mention the last 4 Budgets. But despite the thousands of hours' worth of strikes and the hundreds of thousands of striking workers, the Berlusconian cancer has already wreaked its damage on the living conditions of workers. General strikes begin to have an air of ritual about them and the political and union elites have begun treating them as consensus-seeking opportunities.
So are these strikes useless? Anything but! The general strikes, in which the workers have so generously participated whether they were called by the major unions of the grassroots unions, have been and will continue to be useful for creating the conditions to defeat the government coalition's neo-liberal policies in the workplace and on the streets even before reaching the polling booths. They also serve as a warning to the Olive Tree coalition not to be tempted into taking a similar neo-liberal direction.
This is why we welcome the general strike on 30th November (called by Cgil-Cisl-Uil) and the one on 3rd December (called by CUB and USI-AIT) despite the difference in platforms and the awful practice of different dates. These labour struggles are yet another indication of the difference between the interests of the working class who are victims of the government's laws and policies and the governing class which has produced them. We are on this side, you are on that side. But there is unfortunately no shortage of bridge-builders: you can find them in the Olive Tree coalition and in the ranks of the major unions and they speak with forked tongue. Unclear too is the position of the industrialists' federation, Confindustria, which is speculating on these general strikes to further weaken the government's position.
But the mass of workers waiting for a renewal of their national labour contracts is enormous and the examples of autonomy last winter from transport and industrial workers are proof of the fact that the age of partnership has had to give way to a greater role for the workers themselves in the struggles for the renewal of contracts. Public sector employees mobilized, teachers went on strike, transport and industrial workers mobilized, all aware that at stake were not only wages and jobs but also dignity and the defence of class interests.
The strikes in various sectors are further evidence of the irreconcilable nature of the interests of workers and neo-liberal policies in the public and private sectors. In a situation where the direct and indirect wages of contracted workers are used to feed the financial markets and support tax reductions for the power caste which supports Berlusconi, the inter-classism of the Cisl and Uil and the post-reformism of the Cgil are beginning to sprout leaks, and the only option remaining to the workers is to take the initiative and organise themselves for the defence of their class interests autonomously in the hope that the grassroots unions waste no time deciding which of them is to get the upper hand.
Given the situation, libertarian and anarchist union activists have the difficult task of seeking to coordinate their forces so that the struggle will be united and rooted from below in the workplace and in the community. This is the time to spread a new class consciousness, a new desire for a social revival, a demand for direct democracy in the unions, and an active role in wage and labour bargaining.
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
Labour CommissionNovember 2004