Rome, 4th November
Against precarity,
against clandestinity,
against exclusion,
unity in the workplace, in the movements, on the streets!
2003 will be remembered as the year when the right-wing government of the "House of Freedoms" coalition brought in three laws which, singly and together, were imbued with an underhand but devastating political aim - that of destroying the collective interests in the areas of universal rights and protections, to further liberalize the rules of the market, to allow individualism to dominate, to reduce labour, culture and the right to be accepted into the country into goods.
The labour law (Law 30), the Moratti Law on education, the Bossi-Fini Law on immigration, have all, over the past three years, produced nothing more than increased precarity and greater exploitation in labour, clandestinity and forms of slavery for immigrant workers, new hierarchies among education workers and the promise of precarity among students. Opposition from the movements to these three laws has been strong, as has the social mobilization to denounce their reactionary tone and objectives and seek to impede their corrosive application in work contracts, in educational bodies and in work permits for foreign workers.
Today, the right-wing government no longer exists, but these three laws still cloud the horizon and have their effect on industrial relations, on education and on the lives of immigrant workers.
The movements have been demanding the repeal of this legislation. The present government has replied with the "haircut" tactic - a bit off here, a bit off there, but basically no great change. It is a scenario which is still distinctly neo-liberal, one which still has the approval of the employers' federation, Confindustria, and the European Union, which
promotes FLEXIBILITY to the status of social value in labour, education and citizenship;
fully approves the CUTS in spending announced in the 2007 Budget as an indication of the quality of social services and schools (!);
introduces the SPONSOR (commercial sponsors, sponsors of foreign workers, etc.) as a brand mark on the skin and on the future of foreign workers who wish to establish themselves legally in Italy.
Otherwise just the threat and the hell of the "temporary" detention centres.
Abstruse distinctions on subordinated work or project work in the call centres, promises to eliminate the use of staff leasing and on-call work, union agreements on apprenticeships - none of these have any effect in reducing precarity. They legitimize it, in fact.
Planning to give a certain number of teachers permanent jobs while at the same time intending to cut the number of classes simply renews that army of reserve teachers who make up the precarious workers of the education sector. The new rule about sponsoring foreign workers is only a way to legitimize the system of daily work gangs of immigrant workers and precarity for life for all those who "cannot" find some agency to "ship" them into Italy.
The assembly held on 8th July in Rome was the expression of those of us, mostly grassroots organizations and precarious workers' associations and collectives, who stand against all this and who are struggling to find another way to obtain permanent jobs and work permits for all, and to re-launch public education. This attempt at unity must be defended and strengthened: to re-build an autonomous movement that is not interested in hegemony or in opportunism. A movement that expects nothing from the resignation of a minister or from the sterile polemics between various unions or union leaders. If we are to build a real social opposition to the governing coalition of the Union, without being conditioned, we have to set out on a path which sees the independence and autonomy of the workers and their collective bodies. We need to mobilize those sectors of the unions which are in favour of radical syndicalism tied to the grassroots in the workplace and throughout the community, those political organizations who care about the development of the movements' autonomy and their ability to organize themselves. For those who have no friendly governments or friendly parties within the government, who have no ministers to force to resign nor political party to defend or promote, the only things at stake are:
improving the material living conditions of the weaker classes through struggle against the neo-liberal, militarist policies that this centre-left government is continuing;
keeping at bay the subversive tendencies that can appear at any moment from the right.
For these reasons, the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici will be participating in the demonstration in Rome on 4th November and invites all anti-authoritarian workers, libertarians, adversaries of hierarchy, promoters of self-organized struggles, to build together as and from 4th November and the General Strike on 17th November, a wide movement which is able to combat the government's neo-liberal policies.
FEDERAZIONE DEI COMUNISTI ANARCHICI
31st October 2006
Some photos of the demonstration in Rome on 4th November: