February 14, 1984 is remembered in the history of the union and of the country for the so-called “Valentine's Decree”, the provision with which the Craxi Government intervened on the dynamics of the escalator: the automatism that linked wages to the increase in the cost of living and which, objectively, was an essential component of inflation, the rate of which at the time traveled in the double digits and often in the double tens.
The intervention consisted of a four point cut (which were later reduced to three upon conversion of the decree) of those envisaged for the year. The provision (which introduced a turning point in a year-long negotiation) was opposed by the PCI with a tough parliamentary battle and, in workplaces and in the squares, by the communist component of the CGIL, while the socialists, the CISL and the UIL agreed with the Government.
The Communists used intelligent prudence, as if they had treasured the experience of 1948; they never made use of the right of the majority in all the executive bodies to decide and call strikes involving only the CGIL (there were only "spontaneous" abstentions from work, done on the spot, with the usual method). Where they were able, the Communists they used factory councils (the so-called self-convened), putting together a group which was charged with the adoption of the struggle initiatives. The delegates belonging to the other union organizations were exhibited like so many pilgrim Madonnas.
Then there were the usuals intellectual committees, ready to protest against the attack on trade union freedoms. In Parliament, the groups of the PCI and the independent Left (made up of the flower of economists) made a robust boycott action during the conversion of the decree: as if there were an act of faith to be performed, everyone signed up to speak and took part in the discussion.
Then there was the square. In Rome, at the end of March, hundreds of thousands arrived (there was talk of a million). Enrico Berlinguer, the undisputed leader of the PCI, waited for them on the Lungotevere and as they passed, he exhibited the first page of the Unit containing a headline in large letters. "Here we are". A bevy of filmmakers made themselves available to film the event. As God wanted the decree was converted. Defeated in Parliament, the PCI promoted a abrogative referendum which took place in 1985 and ended with a clear victory for No.
Then began a slow but inexorable decline of the PCI which had been defeated twice on the pretension of expressing a right of veto on problems concerning the world of work. The backlash in the CGIL it was heavy. Luck would have it that Confindustria was the one to remove the chestnuts from the fire with a masterful coup de theatre. At 14 o'clock on Monday (at the time people still voted for two days), while the polling stations were closing, he arrived at the headquarters of the Confederations a letter of cancellation of the agreement on the contingent allowance.
Confindustria had not wanted to disturb the vote and had struck even before the counting began, as if it wanted to choose a "no man's land" destined to last for a moment. The unions found themselves once again in the trenches against their natural adversary. Lama prevented the CGIL from becoming entangled in controversies and took the situation back in hand, re-establishing relations with the other trade union organizations. The catchphrase of the began final stage of the escalator. First, another mechanism was negotiated with the Government as the employer of public employees. This agreement also attracted the adhesion of Confindustria and almost all the other employers' organisations. Thus the Government was able to implement it with a legislative provision and extend it to the whole world of dependent work. The law had deadlines. The Government extended the legislative framework a couple of times, until, in 1991, it decided that it would not proceed further along this road and wanted to hand the matter over to the social partners.
In July 1992, in the triangular protocol signed on the initiative of the Amato Government the escalator disappeared from the stage along with any other automatic payroll indexing mechanism. While in 1993, in the concertation pact promoted by the Ciampi Government, finally a new wage bargaining mechanism, which did not include any model of automatic revaluation of wages with respect to the cost of living. The function of recovering the purchasing power of wages was entrusted to national bargaining. For the record: the ex-communists, after having changed their names several times and recognizing, belatedly, that they had made so many mistakes, still today they do not admit that they waged a bad battle in 1984 and 1985.
