''There Cisl si dissociates from what was said in the press conference by Bombers and Landinis: we dissociate ourselves from what Luigi Sbarra stated in his latest interviews.'' This is the crux of the appeal signed by a hundred former Cisl executives for dissociate from the line of conduct held by the confederation of Via Po regarding the budget maneuver and the general strike proclaimed by Cgil and Uil on November 29. In particular, the dissent is directed at the judgment on the contents of the budget bill''.
Interviews with the Cisl General Secretary Luigi Barra, followed by the echo of the national statutory bodies, affirm that with the 2025 budget "our priorities become results". Our assessment is quite different and of the opposite sign: it is true that the maneuver allocates billions, 2/3 of the total, to maintain the cut in the tax wedge and the merging of two Irpef tariffs, but to maintain that "this alone will guarantee an increase of up to 1.200 euros per year on the paychecks of over 15 million workers..." is a untruthful forcing, a lie because there will not be a pay rise but a cut in the increases obtained with the previous maneuvers (Draghi and Meloni) has been avoided.
At the same time, dissidents are criticizing the choice not to propose, in order to safeguard the unity of action, joint assemblies in the workplace and after street demonstrations, also to shift workers' opinion towards solidarity rather than following the call of the government's neo-corporatist policies - and the strike as a last resort; all this would mean - according to those adhering to the appeal - not seeing the social conflict that exists in a complex society, and not taking into account the conflicts that animate the economic and political interests of the current government majority.
Pezzotta: Cisl must make a greater effort to regain unity
Savino Pezzotta – former general secretary of the Cisl and presumably the instigator of the appeal initiative – added on the side an overload of ''personalized'' criticisms aimed specifically at Luigi Sbarra. And he underlines: "The Cisl must make a greater effort to find unity, at least of action, with Cgil and Uil, because the problems we are facing, such as the climate issue, the industrial issue, the wage that does not increase, the health issue require the maximum unity of the Italian trade union movement. Dissociating and detaching ourselves by saying that the government's things are going well does not convince us. Therefore, we invite our organization to find a point of agreement with the other confederations – continued Pezzotta –. Our idea of a union is that of a Cisl that aims at the unity of the union movement and we reiterate this on this occasion, also because we do not like the politics of this government and we are not convinced. The Cisl has never been close to right-wing governments“.
Then, not satisfied, Pezzotta has increased: “What is not clear is why, with the current leadership, the Cisl never joins the Cgil and Uil on matters that affect workers' rights or on mobilizations related to freedom rights. I do not understand why the Cisl does not join peace initiatives. I am a member, I pay my monthly dues and I would like to know why. Some say that today's strike was a political strike, but they must explain to me what non-political strikes are. It is in the nature of a strike to be a political action, especially a general strike.” Certainly the lack of unity of action among the large historical confederations is a negative aspect. But who is responsible for it? For at least four years, the Cgil and Uil have been preparing the conditions well in advance to plan a general strike in the context of the budget session, even before the governments have finalized their proposals. So much so that an epochal instrument like the general strike has been transformed into a sort of celebration of the Patron Saint, whose date is known and preparations are customary. Can anyone argue that Luigi Sbarra's considerations do not respond to a purely trade union logic? Let's read his statements on the compulsive recourse to a general strike: "A drift that we do not like, potentially dangerous. If we look at the tone and slogans of yesterday's protest, it is really hard not to give it an ideological coloration". Conflict can exist, antagonism not. The Meloni Government's, then, "is not a maneuver for a general strike". The Cisl is fighting for "a constructive and concertative dialogue between the government and responsible social parties", and the results, for the head of the Cisl, are visible.
In fact, it is clear to everyone that there has been an exaggeration in this affair in terms of tone and slogans. It is our duty to take up the considerations set out in an article in Il Diario del Lavoro by Luigi Marelli (an expert in industrial relations) on the meaning of the words revolt e social conflict: ''They might seem to be two synonyms - wrote Marelli - but they are not. One indicates an endemic condition, fortunately inextinguishable, characteristic of "open societies", in which the regulation of different interests occurs through their negotiation. Social conflict, in modern societies, has evolved within fairly precise rules, first of all, relating to the stable representation of these interests, then subsequently to the concept of delegation without constraints on the result, finally to negotiation through mediation processes, more or less determined also by the balance of power in the field. In short, social conflict is inherent in modern democratic and evolved societies, it has its rules, and however intense it may be, as happens in several cases, not least the current dispute over the renewal of the metalworkers' collective bargaining agreement, it can never lose sight of any possible agreement between the parties, failure to reach an agreement would be a defeat, not a victory for the various interests in the field. In this sense, the opening of a social conflict always presupposes negotiation and the outcome of the same, verified on the basis of the rules of the irrevocable mandate given to the negotiators, is the measure of its success or failure. It is never just a test of muscle power, it is never the indistinct and prospectless start of a revolt. Words have a precise meaning.
Even in the darkest hours, organized social forces have been able to maintain precise objectives for the conflicts that they opened. If someone remembers the strikes in Milan in 1943, in the midst of the war, and in the midst of the Nazi-Fascist regime, if someone looks at those photos again, they find in them a sense of discipline and awareness of the force deployed, on which the outcome of the conflict and the authority of those who proposed it depended. Even in that case the platform was clear and not referred to generic objectives of social dissatisfaction. In short - concludes Marelli - social conflict is not synonymous with social revolt, it abhors spontaneity, it shuns generic dissatisfaction, it is not a blaze of desperation, it is the slow patient construction of an organization, of a platform of demands, which is always followed by a laborious negotiation and, not in sporadic cases, painful mediations. Because the real problem of a general strike is not whether it succeeds or not, but above all it is what will happen the next day''.
And it's been at least 4 years in which the next day is the same as the previous one. In the same hours in which the demonstrations were organized, the EU Commission promoted the maneuver for 2025: we do not even ask ourselves what was more significant, the strike or the approval from Brussels, because the answer is obvious and sounds like a death knell for CGIL and UIL. Then, if we scroll through the names of the signatories we come across union careers built on separate agreements, with only one difference: ''the Germans have allied themselves with the Americans'' (that is, the UIL has gone over to the service of the CGIL) as Lieutenant Alberto Innocenzi telephones to the Command in the confusion of September 8, 1943, in the film ''Tutti a casa''.
Separate agreements are in the DNA of the CISL and UIL in the immediate post-war period when the CGIL was prejudiced against centrist governments in the context of the great industrial reconversion that led to the "economic miracle". But there is no need to go back to the 50s. Even in more recent times the CGIL on one side, the CISL and the UIL on the other found themselves on different fronts, without those unitary and mutually supportive assemblies and initiatives called for today by the CISL dissidents being carried out: from the San Valentino agreements of 1984, up to a series of inter-confederal agreements on the structure of bargaining and the revaluation of wages in line with inflation (that IPCA now condemned in the appeal) that, in the first decade of the century, were signed without the CGIL.
Indeed, Savino Pezzotta was one of the main protagonists of the separate agreement of 2 July 2022 with the Berlusconi government (speaking of now abhorred right-wing governments) pompously defined as the ''Pact for Italy''. All this after the CGIL on March 23 had promoted what was defined as the largest demonstration in Italian history, with three million participants (harangued ''hair in the wind'' by a Sergio Cofferati in great form) at the Circus Maximus in Rome against terrorism (on March 19 the New Red Brigades assassinated Marco Biagi) and for the rights under Article 18 of the 1970 statute. Since among the signatories of the Pezzotta appeal there are many former leaders of the Fim Cisl, it is hardly necessary to recall the separate contract renewals not signed by the Fiom-CGIL up until the Pomigliano d'Arco dispute when the metalworkers' federation of the CGIL opposed to the agreement and was defeated in the referendum.
The Cisl in all these occasions of clashes and polemics was always on the right side. As it is today, the organization directed by Luigi Sbarra. As for the failure to adhere (incomprehensible to Savino Pezzotta) to the initiatives for peace, the Cisl adheres to the vocation of freedom that must be defended even with weapons.
