Trade unions: protagonists of the rebirth or risk of marginalization?
Objectives, problems and challenges of the trade unions. Walter Galbusera's notebook
The Italian union is made up of thousands of full-time officials and tens of thousands of militant cadres, is present throughout the country and among all categories, active workers or retirees. The "most representative" national confederations (CGIL, CISL, UIL, UGL and Confsal) reach the size of an average multinational and have significant resources even if, as things stand, it is almost impossible to have a consolidated balance sheet. This is because in the organizational structure both the horizontal and territorial structures (which are responsible for general policies) and the different categories (holders of bargaining) are articulated at national, regional and provincial level with autonomous budgets.
Just think that if you want to determine the total volume of resources available to the Cgil, Cisl and Uil, about 1200 financial statements of the most varied dimensions should be consolidated, as well as the entities and companies of the trade union at various levels. The revenues are determined by the "proxies", real trilateral contracts through which the companies transfer the membership fees to the trade unions, from contributions linked to specific events, from paid secondments contracted with private and public employers, from different concessions the most significant of which concern social security contributions. The same substantial revenue stream deriving from so-called “services” ranging from labor disputes to tax, social security, legal and job security assistance constitute something more than a financial asset. They are an enormous relational heritage based on the trust relationship that is established between the individual and the organization, an instrument for defending the living conditions of workers which are needed precisely in difficult moments.
Over time, the union has been able to build an articulated self-financing system that can be discussed on the merits but not in the legitimacy and has achieved a fundamental objective from the hot autumn onwards: that of combining the enormous growth of its potential political weight with the conquest of its own economic and organizational autonomy. The union's interlocutors should not underestimate him.
But what use does the union make today of its strength and why has the objective of organic unity disappeared from the radar of the CGIL, CISL and UIL?
At this moment, beyond the serious health emergency, which will gradually be overcome, worrying questions are being raised about the stability of an economic, social and (also) political system in our country. Even more disturbing is the inability shown up to now to plan in an organic way to use the enormous resources of the European Union to affect our structural delays. Apart from the ridiculous ballet on the “sanitary” Mes , no clear and selected objectives emerge to increase the competitive capacity of the Italian system, which will never be able to restart without a modern and efficient public administration. Instead, we look with undisguised satisfaction more at the "grants" than at the "loans", ignoring that if the debts are repaid, the "non-repayable fund" will be financed by an additional EU tax levy that all countries will have to give up in their national budget.
In this scenario, the trade union, while taken by surprise by an event similar to an earthquake, underestimates the new social differences that the pandemic has partly created and partly accelerated and continues to carry out its action in terms of demands and forms of struggle. according to traditional canons. But everything has changed: to avoid isolation and defeat it is necessary to adapt strategies to the new reality.
The priority today, to guarantee work, is the defense of the competitiveness of the production system and the efficiency of the public administration, which needs a contractual model that is ever closer to the private one in which merit and responsibility are rewarded. This is not a retreat but an adjustment to new circumstances. The same leader of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, in the confrontation with the president of Confindustria Bonomi stressed that the union alone today cannot find adequate solutions. It is necessary to share visions and interests with the “boss” starting from a modern concept that lives the company as a reality in which relevant common interests coexist between capital and labor.
Conflict has its natural and necessary physiological space in the distribution of results, all the more so in a participatory dimension accepted and promoted with conviction by the social partners. It is in company bargaining that the best cards are played because it is there that value is created and divided through agreements that adapt the organization of work to new needs. Even a claim to reduce working hours for equal pay, which is generally unlikely, could be made in the company. The limits of a centralized bargaining emerge that led Di Vittorio's CGIL (defeat) in the 1950s to launch the slogan of “returning to the factory!”. The very controversy over "wage cages" makes little sense.
The “de facto”, territorial and categorical salary differences in the private sectors are determined both by the economic accounts of the different sectors and by the territorial inflation dynamics. Raising the “minimums” in substantial terms through the renewal of national contracts would mean, at best, pushing marginal companies into the black labor market.
But it is in the state public sector, where bargaining is highly centralized, that resounding contradictions persist that bring out real upside-down wage cages in which the purchasing power in the economically poorer areas is higher than in the center-north and that make people shout. to the "deportation" (or to renounce) the winning teachers of the competition who should be transferred to the new premises. It is not a question of paying less for teachers in the south but of paying more for those who work in the center and north.
The defense of the occupation itself cannot be limited to blocking layoffs. Not only because, as past experiences have shown, it will not last long but above all because time must not be wasted, not only to allow companies to restructure and survive, but first of all to operate active labor policies that guarantee shock absorbers. and at the same time ensure the possibility of professional qualification or reconversion in order to seek effective relocation.
The work of the union is very demanding but there are no shortcuts and it is not the first time that it has found itself in difficult situations.
It would also be important to understand whether the old trade union unity project is current. It all depends on two variables, the first being the existence or not of a strong identity difference between the main organizations. Compared to the past, this "diversity" seems to have diminished but it is not excluded that, in the face of inevitable assumptions of responsibility, it reappears with strong divergences.
The second is more pragmatic because, in the objective absence of a strong push from the workplace, the unification would end up looking a bit like the birth of a new company that assembles other pre-existing ones. It is understandable that enormous difficulties arise in building new organizational charts in all sectors and in all territories. It is much more likely that, on the basis of shared rules, the certified election of delegates in all workplaces implicitly defines representation and representativeness of each organization and adopts a "unity of rules" which, at every level, entrusts to the vote of qualified majorities the most important decisions.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/sindacati-protagonisti-della-rinascita-o-rischio-emarginazione/ on Sat, 28 Nov 2020 07:24:18 +0000.