''This morning, marches of demonstrators including O.ME.CA. workers, Enel employees, railway workers, walked through the streets of the center to remind people of Reggio that the protest continues. Shops and offices closed, stop buses. In groups, the demonstrators block the access roads to the city from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian sides. Rudimentary barricades are erected on the streets of the center also using AMA buses blocked in various parts of the city and then placed across the street. The exit routes of the airport are also blocked by obstructions. The first accidents occur shortly before noon. A group of demonstrators damaged some windows of Palazzo S. Giorgio by throwing stones, in another area of the city the main gate of the INAIL office was torn down and the employees were forced to suspend work''.
Thus the chronicles of the beginning of the Revolts of Reggio Calabria. In 1970 there had been – welcomed with great hopes – the institution of the Regions with ordinary statute. In that circumstance, in Calabria, they established that the offices of the new body should be in Catanzaro. In Reggio Calabria the decision sounded like an insult. There were real popular uprisings: even two people died in the clashes between demonstrators and the forces of order (a railway worker and a police brigadier).
Similar events also took place in Abruzzo, in L'Aquila, following the choice of Pescara as capital. The federation of the PCI was besieged: managers and employees were driven out amidst spitting and name-calling. In Reggio Calabria the parties split: a piece of the DC (mayor in the lead) and the right supported the revolt. The Psi found himself in the crosshairs, since his national secretary Giacomo Mancini was Calabrian (an elderly man, before he died, he returned to politics in his region, as mayor of Cosenza) and was accused of having betrayed the people of Reggio. The PCI (together with the CGIL) – oh! Great goodness of the ancient knights! – He held a line of absolute firmness: he branded those uprisings as if they were populist and fascist. For many months it did not budge an inch; the militants barricaded themselves in the premises of the Federation and let it be known that it was not convenient to storm them. No one dared to try.
The city slipped into the arms of the MSI who took sides in the Reggio cause. And in the following elections, Giorgio Almirante's party gathered a lot of votes and sent one of the leaders of the revolt to Parliament: Francesco (Ciccio) Franco, already a "voicing leader" of the urban guerrillas, trade unionist of Cisnal (he changed his name to Ugl and is cleaned up), a militant of the MSI from which he had been expelled (and readmitted) at least five times.
The revolt, which began in July 1970 (this year is the fiftieth anniversary), continued in the first months of 1971. In the city there was only one engineering factory of a certain size: the Officine Omeca, manufacturers of railway material. In the early hours, the workers had been the first to climb the barricade. Then a slow recovery action had begun. To appease discontent the regional assembly approved a project for the articulated location of public offices (the Giunta in Catanzaro, the Council in Reggio Calabria, the University in Cosenza).
For its part, the Government decided to build the V Iron and Steel Center in the province of Reggio Calabria, in the Piana di Gioia Tauro. It was not the first time that colossal settlements of basic industry had to serve to solve social problems. Sardinian chemistry, for example, was conceived as an alternative to banditry and the kidnapping industry. For the unions, the V Centro seemed like a great opportunity; not so to the reggini. History and the economy have given region to their distrust. In that locality lush crops were destroyed and different projects were pursued. Once the hypothesis of the iron and steel industry faded away, it was thought of an Enel power plant, then this solution too was shelved.
The port remained. It was supposed to be the service structure for the iron and steel plant, but instead he found it its interesting convenience as a real port. It also seems to carry out a discreet activity (but due to its geographical location it could carry out a greater activity): its problem lies in the fragility of the road system to reach the docks or to get away from them. Obviously these considerations apply net of the infiltration of organized crime. Therefore, the inhabitants of Reggio were well aware that the offices of the Region would bring "heavy" and guaranteed employment for a few thousand people. Somehow the facts proved them right. But that's a whole other story.
