Annotated Bibliography of Working Class Struggles In Italy. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.

Working Class Struggle In Italy PDF

Autonomous Assembly of Alpha Romeo “Against the State As Boss.” Burno Ramirez and Judy Ramirez, Trans. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973. Day to day account of 11/1971-2/1973 struggle at the Portello and Arese Alfa plants. Portello plant workers older, still maintain strong trade union ties, plant shrinking. Arese newer, was still being built at time of writing; 65% of workers on assembly line are immigrants from the south; greater level of militancy than at Portello plant. Autonomous Assembly took the role of a vanguard. Seeks to become “permanent political reference point for the workers. AA’s militancy in part a response to Italian gov’s job classification that is a response to real subsumption of labor AA: “you are ‘selected’ not on the basis of what you know or are able to do, but on the basis of your willingness to lick ass”(47-49.) 11/15 strike, Portello: management cancels and then shorts pay checks, unions conciliatory, invoke “democratic decisions” 11/16 marchers find everyone at work in computer center, force them out ans start discussing with them (53.) 12/9-1/9/1973 absenteeism (56.-76) 1/10: intensification of coreti interni ; confrontation with police; Arrest and suspension of Frank Atzeni; planning occupation at Arese; occupation; conflict with CP, which negotiates a new contract.

Dowson, Ernest. “The Italian Background.” Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973. “After the Second World War, the Italian ruling class, aided by the Marshal Plan, began the reconstruction of a capitalist economy. The communists cooperated with them.” (7.) Revolutionary hopes of workers “traded for a seat in the Government” (7.) Anti-Fascist groups give up arms, don’t combat US presence (7.) Communists ousted from government, bourgeoisie starts program to suppress working class organizations. Trade unions, e.g., FIM, militant metal workers union at Fiat, broken up (7-8.) Government backing and investment to streamline and modernize export industries (8.) Paid for by workers in the form of “low wages and lousy living conditions (8.) Automation of industry means job growth slow and high unemployment (8.) Industrial growth concentrated in North. South agricultural “long history of client system based on large land owners and patronage, government takes role of landowners after 1945 through distribution of public money (8.) Agriculture rationalized: large mechanized units Populations driven to cities. Between 1950 and 1967 17,000,000 Italians, more than a third of the population moved from one district to another (8.) a small amount of construction work comes south, but not enough to prevent mass migration to the north “The constant reserve of labor was exactly what the Italian bosses needed. It helped to keep wages down, even when the demand for workers began to grow” (8.) 1962 Fiat strike in Turnin. Demand for workers caused by 1959 boom makes wages rise while unemployment falls. Profits fall; investment slows, money goes abroad or into land speculation; instead of pushing productivity up with machinery, they begin to squeeze [deskilled] workers harder. Speeds on production lines pushed up until they become the highest in Europe (9.)
Unemployment starts to grow again, food, housing, and transport in inflationary spiral (9.) 1951-1961 4 largest urban areas (Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples)increase in population by 2,000,000: 2/3 of national population increase. GESCAL, Gestione case per i lavoratori, builds only 390,000 apartments between 1949 and 1971 — the same number that were built privately in one year (9.) In 1971, GESCAL built 3,254 apartments and had a waiting list of 138,931 families. (9.) Workers contributed 0.6% of wages to GESCAL, bosses 1.2%. Rents consumed up to 40% of worker wages (9.) 1968: strikes and absenteeism on the rise, riots in the south.
Competition for markets between Italian firms and rivals, especially the US (Fiat v Ford, e.g.;) Antagonism between different sectors of Italian capital (small (us invested/owned;)) v large firms (supported by state;) small industries liquidated or absorbed (10.) 1969: Triennial contracts in metalworking expire Trade Unions, firms and CP ready to deal (10.) CP dreams of entering government again.
“Base committees” among workers worry CP and union officials (11.) But to ensure bargaining position unions had to mobilize workers, who wanted more than unions (11.) The Hot Autumn: When workers were called out on a 1 day strike by union to protest the killing of a southern worker during rioting at Battipaglia, “they refused to leave the factory, and started to take it over instead” (11.) Turn from striking with unions to struggle in factories. Split between older skilled workers of CP new generation of workers who’s individual skills didn’t matter and who “didn’t give a damn about the dignity of labor” (class compostion argument (12.) Between 1969 and 1970 wages went up 23.4%, 10 previous years 9%. Concessions attempt to calm things (12.) Bosses also use repression (12.)1969-1973: rent strikes; building occupations/squats ; Protests against food prices/ red market at Pisa; Transportation actions take over of public transportation in the suburbs of Venice; Fare strike in Trento; Primary and secondary school strikes and occupations; Health care center in Rome; Prison actions by prisoners in Milan and Naples. Red Help to support prisoners from the outside 13-14.)

Kaplan, Jim. “Introduction to the Revolutionary Left In Italy.” Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.
The revolutionary left in Italy “to the left of the Communist Parties” (1) CGIL, communist-socialist labor confederation exhibits new power in triennial contract negotiations of1963 (2) The PCI enters the Italian cabinet arguing that only they can “fulfill Italy’s potential for economic growth” (2) Proposed wage increase work of “oligopoly capitalist who could pass them on to consumers” but don’t work for smaller companies (2.) Leads to economic concentration “necessary for international goals” FIAT, Pirelli, Montedison (chemicals,) ENI (petroleum) Italsider (steel) (2.) Elimination of the petit bourgeoisie (2.) Promoting big capital in this way would also benefit the working class (2.) The working class sees the PCI linking their interests to those of capitalist accumulation, moving toward reform and not revolution (3.) Maoists blamed this co-optation (“instrumentalization”) on “revisionist mis-leadership;” Quaderini Rossi argued it was caused by historical changes in the working class (3.) CPI built by skilled workers in older industrial centers of Italy in the 40s. The political objective of those workers was domination of the work process in “what was still largely craft production” (3.) Investment during “economic miracle” brings the assembly line production in the 1950s and 50s. The mas vanguards of the 60s and 70s came from factory workers, not the skilled workers of the PCI and CGIL (3.) By 1969: Potere Operaio wants guaranteed wages for all “political wages” Lotta Continua spreads continuous militancy for “precise objectives in every aspect of everyday life” (4.)

Lotta Continua. “Take Over The City.” Ernest Dawson Trans. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.
On Rent Strikes and Occupations in Milan. Starts with urbanist analysis of class and rent in Milan (81-83.) 5-1-1970 Rent Strike focused on Quarto Oggiaro (municipal housing area) eviction resistance, tenants union (84-90.) 1-22-1971 mass occupations/ squats (90-99.) Rome: People’s Clinic June 1971 (99-104.)
Consideration of Occupation instead of voting (104-105.)Housing actions in Southern Italy (105- “Cassa del Mezzogiorno” set up to stop mugration by subsidizing agriculture and create infrastructure (housing, roads, schools, hospitals) (106.) Building of state owned, ultra modern low employment factories in Naples (Alfa,) Italsider steel in Taranto and Naples, chemical plants in Bari and Poroto Torres (Sardinia.) Taranto (107-108;) Palermo (108-110;) Naples (110-112.)

Potere Operaio. “Italy 1973: Workers Struggles in the Capitalist Crisis.” Mario Montano and Silvia Federici, Trans. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.
The working class struggle as producing a crisis (15.) “Generalized refusal of the capitalist organization of work” (15.) Keynesian policies as containment (16.) “The economic crisis was imposed on capitalists by working-class struggle. Throughout the 1968-1970 cycle of struggles workers not only has stepped up their mass struggle against work at the point of production through increased strikes, self-reduction of work time, “absenteeism,” and sabotage (all activities that do not reproduce capital,) but also had expressed their determination to struggle against the capitalist state” (17.) “Marx and particularly since the scientific organization of labor…”Real subsumption as “class composition” (19.) Capital starts to deal directly with the “material existence as labor force, as a mere commodity” (19.) Capital uses technology to produce gaps in homogeneous texture of a working class politically dominated by the behavior of the mass worker.” (19.) Reduction of work force (tchno unemployment;)demobilization of sectors and regions; decentralization of productive sectors to eliminate large working class concentrations; wider range of skills for some and widened pay differentials (19.) The chemical industry (20.) Auto industry cite of struggle sites 1933-1937 struggles in us (20.) Fiat rules out new production methods which would involve capital outlay and a 25% cost increase (20.) Investment in south Porto Torres and Gela as “cathedrals in the desert” attempt to divide the working class along geographic lines (20.) 198 constitution founded on priciipla of “class cooperation in the name of economic development” (21.) Tracks roles of governments in contract negotiations 1970-1973 (21-31.)“The worker’s struggle has been “beyond the contract” all along (31.) “In our occupation, the factory is a starting point for the revolutionary struggle, not a place to work” (31.)

Sofri, Adriano. “Organizing For Worker’s Power.” John Huot, Trans. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.
Written for Pisa Il Potere Operaio Published in French by Les Temps Modernes 10/69
The problem of the party traditionally posed as that of the growth of subjectively revolutionary groups (33-34.) PO Opt instead for “ongoing involvement in reality of class struggle”(34.) Workers struggles no longer simply economic and “inherently trade unionist” (35-36.) Revolution in advanced capitalist countries comes from “ripening of the political confrontation between capital and the proletariat. This implies changing from the perspective of insurrection to the perspective of protracted (eventually armed struggle)” (37.) Workers’ Power not an external vanguard because they don’t see themselves a the embryo of the party, but “as a group of militants whose objective is to accelerate the conditions necessary for the development of the mass revolutionary organization” (38.) Revolutionaries “at the service of autonomous masses” (42.) Tasks: Create opportunities an means for links of communication among workers; discover means for self-analysis of worker struggle; support unity in the struggle; maximize worker autonomy in choise of organizational forms (43.) Critique of centralization; critique of functionality (44.)

Viale, Guido. “Interview With Guido Viale.” Bruno Ramirez, Trans. Radical America. V 7. N2. March-April 1973.
Viale one of the founders of Lutta Continua.I “Arrested with with nine other comrades and charged with attempted murder in connect with clashes the night before in the streets of Turin between revolutionaries and neo-fascists” (113.)
“’struggle against labor’ — meaning radical negation of the capitalist organization of work and life” (114.) Proletarianization of south (115.) Role of the CPI (116-117.) 1973 round of labor negotiations (117-119.)