Despite the (unintentional?) assists of Matteo Salvini, the last Friday strikes they highlighted the beginning of a growing disenchantment among workers, in the face of repeated strike superficiality. The finding applies to the general abstention from work carried out (for the fourth time in four years) by the Cgil and the Uil on 29th November.
Strikes: the adhesions to the last Fridays of struggle
Regardless of the official percentages, it was the same Maurizio Landini to admit it, when he provided (by eye) that the participants in the 46 demonstrations (in his opinion the squares were the scene of the social revolt) organized on the occasion of the strike were more or less 500 thousand. But even on December 13, the last of the usual Fridays of struggle and vacation reserved almost weekly for the initiatives of the grassroots unions, which in the local transport categories have acquired a widespread influence (to the detriment of the confederal federations) the first creaks are starting to be felt despite the opportunity to extend the weekend and the overload of objectives justifying the strike, many of which are questionable, far-fetched and hateful (as are those referring to international events).
Strikes: Should the rules be changed?
As the competent minister, Salvini manages these steps based on a questionable common sense to safeguard the citizens users with a casual use of the injunction even when he lacks the opinion of the Guarantee Commission. So much so that during the strike last Friday even a person of common sense like Luigi Barra was forced to call the minister to order. The secretary general of the Cisl he wanted to remember that "the rules on strikes are already codified and shared: they cannot be cancelled with a unilateral act by a minister or a government. It is one thing to criticize the ritual and compulsive use of the instrument, a fact that damages the union above all, but it is quite another to question the current discipline that regulates its exercise". Is it time to change the rules?
Strikes, how Article 40 of the Constitution was born
Before taking any decision on the matter, it is appropriate to remember how we came to implement (limitation to the exercise of strike action in essential public services) thearticle 40 of the Constitution. It started with self-regulation agreements (at the time it was the CGIL that carried on this battle), which were valid as rules that the unions committed to follow to protect workers' rights according to criteria that took into account the sacrosanct needs of users who cannot be considered a counterparty like companies and their associations in other production and service sectors. The laws then ended up receiving, consolidating and extending those agreements under the supervision of an authoritative and impartial Guarantee Commission, which over decades of activity has developed a jurisprudence to follow. Paradoxically, on a formal level, the "pirate" unions are much more careful to respect the rules than the confederal ones.
Strikes, an abuse?
But the new trade union reality that is present in these sectors – characterised by a fragmentation of representation – has ended up determining a abuse of the strike now transformed into a tool for legitimizing a proliferation of acronyms competing with each other within a context of trade union freedom. As stated Peter Ichino, "by taking place on Fridays it aims to take advantage of the opportunistic adhesion of those who participate only to add a day of vacation to the weekend. The strike would have much more value, prestige, political weight, if it were held on the central days of the week; but those who proclaim it know that it would have much less participation".
Strikes, attempts to review the rules
In the recent past – during the XVI legislature – both the government and the opposition raised the issue of review the rules for the exercise of the strike in essential services. The then Minister of Labor presented a bill for the government Maurice Sacconi; from the opposition came a proposal by Pietro Ichino himself, then a senator of the Democratic Party. Obviously nothing came of it. How did the Sacconi bill intend to remedy those abstentions from real acts of piracy, damaging the rights of citizens? First of all, the strike had to be declared by the most representative organizations. To proclaim an abstention from work, the minority unions were obliged to submit to a referendum. It was then established the obligation for workers to declare their intention to abstain (or not) from work, to allow the authorities concerned to prepare adequate emergency plans and user guarantees.
Finally, any revocation had to be made with adequate notice and not at the last moment except in the case of a trade union agreement. These were reasonable changes that, among other things, intervened to repress road and rail blockades, often carried out by minorities that had escaped the control not only of confederal trade unionism, but also of the more radical and corporate type. These are matters that have been included in the security decree now contested by the opposition and left-wing trade unionism.
Right to strike, what Ichino's proposal says
More recently, Peter Ichino – in an interview with Rita Querzé, on Corriere della Sera of 13 November 2023 – reiterated the measures he supported in his previous proposal. “In the sector of essential public services – according to the authoritative labour lawyer – the rule that applies in many large European countries could be introduced, according to which the proclamation must be approved by a certain percentage of the workers concerned. It would also be necessary to correctly apply – he continued – a rule that already exists. The one that obliges all parties, entrepreneurs, unions and workers, to warn users of what will and will not work during the strike. Today, workers in the sector are unduly exempted from declaring, with the advance notice required by law, their adhesion (or not) to the strike. The prior knowledge of the adhesion of individuals would allow for the respect of a right that the law attributes to citizens, in the field of essential public services.: the one to know at least five days in advance the trains that will travel, the classes of a school whose teachers will be regularly at work, and so on. This is the part of the law that is not respected today”.
As you can see, it would not be difficult to reach an agreement even today. Without instrumentally inconveniencing the violation of the sacredness of the right to strike.