Red is back in fashion
Millions march in Rome for workers' rights
By John Catalinotto
Red is back in fashion in Italy. Even the conservative press
had to admit it after 2 million to 3 million unionists, youth,
anti-globalist forces, the gay movement and activists of all
progressive tendencies joined in a demonstration in Rome on
March 23 to defend workers' rights against the right-wing
regime's latest attack.
This action gives tremendous impulse to a general strike
planned for April 16.
The vast sea of demonstrators waved red flags--historically
the emblem of the working-class movement. Despite the modest
demands and the peaceful mood of the protesters, this
demonstration-- the largest workers' protest in Italy's
history--reverses the mood of retreat within the working
class.
The right-wing regime, despite its bitter hostility to
working Italy, is in disarray. Those members of the government
coalition concerned about losing all working-class support are
pulling back. Meanwhile, the moderate left can no longer expect
that workers will accept a rotten compromise.
The demonstration was a defensive action called by the
historically leftwing union confederation CGIL. It demanded the
government of right-wing media mogul Premier Silvio Berlusconi
halt his plans to dismantle Article 18, a section of the law
that defends workers' rights to a job. The law was won in mass
workers' struggles between 1968 and 1970.
In effect, Berlusconi is trying to do in Italy what Reagan
did in the U.S. and Thatcher did in Britain in the 1980s.
Attack unions. Create differences between older and younger
workers. Remove legal restrictions to firings and work
conditions and create an open road for the grossest capitalist
exploitation.
In the weeks before the demonstration, it appeared that the
conflict would end in some compromise between the regime and
the three union confederations: the CGIL and the even less
resolute CISL and UIL. Now, following bitter terrorist-baiting
attacks on the unions, all union leaders have agreed to refuse
to talk and--for now, at least--to instead prepare for a
general strike.
Assassination fails to stop mass action
A few days before the protest, a government technician
drafting the new labor law, Marco Biagi, was assassinated in
Bologna. According to the investigating police, the murder was
the act of a little-known group of "Red Brigades," who
allegedly took credit for the killing.
The manifesto issued by this alleged left group was so
filled with contradictions and faulty logic, however, that the
killing looked to most people on the left like a government
provocation. It is now common knowledge that in Italy in the
1970s, right-wing CIA-affiliated groups committed this type of
"terrorist" provocation to try to keep the Italian Communist
Party from entering the government.
The Berlusconi regime tried to use the assassination to
attack the union movement, blaming it for contributing to a
climate that encourages terror. The resulting mass
demonstration shows that this provocation failed completely,
and that the workers were not stopped by such menacing
maneuvers.
Florence union leader John Gilbert told Workers World, "It
was probably the biggest demonstration most of us will ever
participate in. The more loud-mouthed and stupid
representatives of the government attacked the demonstration as
'anti-democratic.' They tried to link the union attacks on the
government with the terrorist assassination of Biagi, but it
all backfired on them so far."
The talks are now stopped. "Things are hot and the tension
is high," Gilbert said. "On March 26 the CGIL, CISL and UIL
should set a new date for the national, united general
strike."
A veteran of the 1968 struggles, Fausto Schiavetto of
Soccorso Popolare, wrote the following of the
demonstration:
"Impressive. It was an enormous wave of the color red. It is
a major political passage, that follows Genoa 2001 where
already there had been 300,000 people protesting against
imperialist globalization.
"The heart of the working class, Italian workers, the
Italian people have demonstrated against neoliberalism and
against its policies. An enormous mass is in place and ready
for a general strike, for a difficult struggle to begin to
reverse the neoliberal policies.
"Many of the slogans were also against Bush's infinite war
and the big capitalists. When the government accused the older
workers of narrow goals hostile to the youths, the workers
answered by carrying banners announcing themselves as father
and son." There was even one group of grandmothers, mothers and
daughters that united many generations.
"It was a major demonstration that opened a new chapter in
the struggle between capital and labor in Italy and in Europe.
The working class has begun to be fed up with retreating and
has come out in the street announcing it is ready for
struggle," wrote Schiavetto.
All voices in the anti-imperialist left agree that the
moderate leaderships of the major union confederations,
including the CGIL, are a brake on the development of this vast
movement. Then there are the larger center-left parties, which
led Italy for five years and waged the criminal war against
Yugoslavia in full collaboration with NATO and the Pentagon.
They now back Bush's "war on terror."
Also, it should be kept in mind that the workers were
demanding only that their rights, already won, be preserved.
There were no clear demands for a change in government, let
alone a change in the social system.
But there is no doubt that after years of retreat and
passivity, the Italian working class is back on center stage.
Berlusconi, for all his swaggering and all his backing from the
imperialist world system, is in trouble.
Reprinted from the April 4, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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