La Fiom brings metalworkers to the streets to protest against Fiat, against the negotiations for the reform of the labor market, for the defense of article 18 and in general to ask for a new "model of development" based on more taxes and more investments state. So far nothing new. But Landini's decision to hold a big demonstration capable of coagulating all the antagonisms and of transforming the concerns of many workers for the economic crisis into a shock mass potentially the actress of a social revolt, has caused a total rift with Bersani's Pd which, taking as an excuse the presence of exponents of No-Tav, will not participate in the event.
sensational news that had been in the air for some time, but that the Pd he had never found the courage to declare publicly, trying to keep his reformist soul together with his antagonistic one. But now Fiom pulled too far. Between a party that is a candidate to govern the country and therefore must have realistic ideas and a sense of responsibility, and a group of antagonists who are content to bear witness to a possible global alternative road (which, moreover, when it was and poverty rather than joy and progress), there can be no confusion.
Some intellectuals such as Flores d'Arcais and Furio Colombo remained alongside Fiom, and a handful of journalists who are scrambling to portray Landini as the sole representative of the metalworkers neglecting Fiom and Uilm which even in many companies collect the vast majority of workers. The watchwords are bombastic: defense of rights and the Constitution, defense of democracy, struggle for work. And the more the tone of the rhetoric rises, the more one sees the poverty of the concrete proposals. The refusal to discuss both with the Government and within companies the best ways to raise productivity and reduce the tax burden entails giving up any prospect of wage improvement for the employed and even more so for the many young people who are cut off from the job market. In no case is the warning of the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Visco, taken into consideration, who reiterated that if we want to maintain the current level of well-being we must work more, with more people, and for longer, as only in this way we will be able to increase the productivity of all factors, labour, capital and the state.
The definitive passage of Fiom from an extremist trade union but still linked to the logic of bargaining, to a para-political formation totally antagonistic that plays its role more in society than inside the factories, it happened with the clash in Pomigliano and in general with Fiat. A clash that, step by step, led to a totally separate contract for the car and to the exit of Fiom from all the factories of the Turin company. Seen in hindsight, it is clear that Fiom has started a specious tug of war with the Fiat more for the symbolic and flag value that what happens in Turin has always had in the country, than for the merit of the requests made by the company, given that Fiom itself signs similar agreements in other smaller companies with less media impact . Now the judicial route has been taken, which beyond the unpredictability of the sentences of the judiciary, is a bit the testimony of the inability to do one's job as a trade unionist.
To disguise one's defeat in the factories, Landini now stands, according to what Flores d'Arcais writes, as a catalyst for all the social struggles that are taking place in Italy, favored in this by the halo of the martyr of the capitalist system which, as often happens, surrounds the figure of whoever led the own troops in a dead end following serious mistakes in tactics and strategy.
The negotiations on the labor market, an essential reform to overcome the competitiveness gap that separates us from other developed countries and to demonstrate to the world that Italy has embarked on the path of a renewal that creates more suitable conditions for growth, had also been suspended to allow Fiom to hold its own demonstration without being able to attack specific points of a possible agreement. Monday we can start again to address the numerous technical problems still to come, to carefully evaluate the resources necessary to make the reform of social safety nets effective and to understand how to amend article 18. These are technically even more complex than politically complex issues. It is not possible to increase costs for businesses and at the same time it is necessary to give greater protection to those who lose their jobs, while setting up a system capable of offering those who are momentarily unemployed both effective training and an effective search for a alternative job. Naturally putting the obligation for the worker to accept it under penalty of losing unemployment benefit. As you can see a real revolution.
In this context, Article 18 needs to be amended. On the one hand, it is a question of reducing the time taken for legal cases which in some cases lasted even 7-8 years, and on this everyone seems to agree. But then we need to clarify what is meant by "just cause" without leaving the interpretation to the full discretion of the judge. This is more complex because it is necessary to limit the right to reinstatement only to cases of discriminatory dismissal and to establish monetary compensation for other cases. They are difficult problems. But if you sit around the table with a constructive spirit in order to get the economy of a country back on track for too long, the solution can be found. If, on the other hand, we limit ourselves to agitating the streets with unrealistic slogans that outline an imaginary earthly paradise, then not only are we condemning the workers to have no prospect of wage improvement, but we also risk making the whole country run a new phase of retreat and marginalisation.
