Maurizio Landini it will be the new one general secretary of the CGIL instead of Susanna Camusso, while Vincenzo Colla will be his deputy.
After a very eventful opening day, in which the outgoing general secretary gave her worst by accusing the reform candidate Vincenzo Colla of having broken the unity of the CGIL, during the night the Congress of Bari reached an agreement on the new summit which today will be submitted to the vote of the 800 delegates.
Barring last-minute twists, the former leader of the Fiom metalworkers thus becomes the new general secretary of the largest Italian trade union. But it will be necessary to see whether or not the agreement with Colla will correct the line he has held in all these years: a maximalist line, antagonistic and often subordinate to the populism of the Five Stars.
The component that belongs to Landini will have 7 members in the new confederation secretariat, while 3 will go to that of Colla.
Decisive for Landini's success was the support of Camusso that, as outgoing secretary, she did everything except exercise her role impartially. In recent months he has made a straight-legged speech in the middle of the congressional campaign, abruptly proposing Landini's candidacy for the general secretary without the consent of the entire Confederation and yesterday he launched an unjustified J'accuse against Colla, improperly accusing him of having broken indoor unit.
The agreement matured in the night will put perhaps an end to internal warfare but the doubts about the union line of the CGIL are very strong and certainly they will not help the real defense of the workers in the face of the ruinous choices of the Government, towards which Landini has been very ambiguous up to now. The risk that the CGIL will continue its corporate-maximalist drift is far from dispelled by the Landini secretariat. And above all for the reformist Cisl it will be difficult, beyond the facade declarations of the secretary Furlan, to really carry forward a project of unity among the trade union centers.
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