The Crossroads

Free reflections on the struggle of the local transport workers

Once upon a time there was the struggle and there was the strike. But nowadays, perhaps as a result of so many years of retreat and the many defeats that the workers' movement has suffered in recent times, when we look at the "phenomenon" of the local transport workers we find ourselves rubbing our eyes in disbelief and we can't help calling their struggle "exemplary" and their strikes "wildcat" (not in the negative sense that the bourgeois press gives this term, but with a sort of self-satisfied revolutionary smugness). Exemplary struggle and wildcat strike do, however, express the exceptional nature of what has been taking place in the bus, tram and underground depots more or less all over Italy. 

In this day and age it is indeed exceptional forworkers to launch a fight and to strike without respecting the strike laws and all the red tape that have been created over the years with the very purpose of weakening the effects of the struggle, of emptying the strike of all meaning. Something else which was exceptional (but which, unfortunately, is mentioned a bit less) is the fact that this struggle was decided by the workers themselves, at assemblies organized by themselves without the presence of union bureaucrats, or, if they were present they stayed quiet. Some did try weakly to ride the tiger of the protests but had little success. It is also exceptional that all this has been going on, since before Christmas, in Italy.

With their wildcat strikes, the local transport workers have burst out of the rut we have been in for years, waving the galloping inflation in the faces of all, not to mention the decade-long wage freeze, the disservices caused by the privatization of public services and the repression of the democratic state. By doing this they have not only managed to get out of the rut, they have also ridden roughshod over what caused the rut - the partnership-friendly unions, the centre-left political parties and large part of "civilized society" (the majority of the consumer associations, for example). All of these have been forced to take stock of the self-organized workers and have shown their true bureaucratic and/or anti-worker nature. 

And they are none the better for it. Those on the so-called progressive front who in their time introduced certain devastating neo-liberal, freedom-killing policies, the effects of which are still to be felt today, are in a somewhat embarasing position. They were sorely tempted to use the transport strikes to attack Berlusconi, but they were equally worried that this struggle could continue and spread to other sectors, thereby introducing for a future centre-left government the prospect of a widescale social conflict which would be difficult for their friends in the monolithic unions to control. 

And these unions, having signed the contract which was so roundly rejected by the workers in their protests, had every interest in letting time pass so they could busy themselves with their fake polemics on whether or not to try for a referendum, in the hope that the drivers will to fight would burn out, "helped" by the arrival of sanctions which the government promised to impose on the strikers.

Given the situation, it is vitally important for the local transport workers to extend the struggle as soon as possible. It needs to be better focused and more resolute if it is to defend public services in the face of privatization and if it is to encourage the involvement of other sectors in an attempt to cut once and for all the umbilical cord which still ties the workers to the CGIL, the CISL and the UIL.

This is no lack of good reasons why a campaign against the privatization of services (transport included) cannot be launched. All over Europe, workers are fighting the liberalization of public services, in some cases introducing notable contradictions even within the institutions. The European Parliament's rejection of plans to liberalize ports is a case in point. In Italy, the contradictions within the alliance of the bosses and the government have reached a new peak with the passing of a law which allows local councils to operate public transport through their own privatized transport companies. In other words, we have a hyper-liberalist government which is permitting local councils to operate transport through a public monopoly! If this is not a situation to make the most of, what is?

On the union front, instead, not many perhaps have fully understood a sour note in the clash, which risks bogging down the struggle in the quicksands of state-aproved syndicalism - the fact that in milan it was once again the partnership unions who were involved in the bargaining for the new contract. This is happening in Genoa too and in other cities where there had been a dramatic breach with the CGIL, CISL and UIL. So, does this movement of local transport workers have its ideas clear? Does it have the authority or organizational levels which are sufficient to allow it to conduct any bargaining itself? So far, this has not been not the case. At most, some workers' collectives have asked to participate in the bargaining, as observers - delegates from the base. 

It is probably a question of time and of a growth in of the level of awareness by the workers of the value of self-organization. Neither must this be limited to the organization of struggles - it needs to be aimed at winning the power to bargain directly. Direct bargaining cannot be just a slogan, it has to become a programme. With this in mind, the grassroots unions in the various categories are in a position to provide the workers with answers and with open structures and can, together with the workers, build a platform for a new contract, demanding for them and leaving to them the task of bargaining. The grassroots unions have behaved well during the transport workers' struggle, but they must find the courage, if not to unite, then at least to federate in order to be able to become a point of reference.

The local transport workers have two roads ahead of them. Either they will be sucked back into the morass of the partnership unions by allowing the CGIL, CISL and UIL time to re-organize themselves, or they can jump over the ditch and continue along the road which they have so bravely followed thus far and carry along with them other sectors and society at large, and bring the process of self-organization to the point of success.

Fabrizio Acanfora

from Alternativa Libertaria Mar.04
News-sheet of the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici