Contribution of the Communist Front of Italy

Dear comrades,

on behalf of the Communist Front of Italy I would like to warmly welcome all the sister Parties attending today's meeting.

In 2024, France witnessed massive social mobilizations that highlighted the growing discontent of workers. There were also significant protests, albeit to a lesser extent, in Great Britain and Germany. A year later, it is timely to reflect on the impact of these protests and analyze why, despite similar economic and social conditions, Italy continues to show relative stillness on the front of workers' struggles. This contrast raises important questions about the future of the labor movement in Europe and the specificity of the Italian context.

The French mobilizations of 2024 have been one of the most significant workers' protest movements in recent years in Europe. Triggered mainly by the proposals to reform the pension system, the increase in the cost of living and the increasing job insecurity, these protests have seen the participation of millions of workers, with peaks of over two million demonstrators on the days of greatest mobilization.

French unions, particularly the CGT, have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for cross-sector mobilization, effectively coordinating protest actions of different categories, from transport to energy, from education to health. The breadth of the movement has allowed them to maintain high pressure on the government for several months. The results obtained, although partial, included some significant
wage concessions in certain strategic sectors and a reshaping of some aspects of the reforms originally proposed. In addition, these mobilizations have helped bring issues such as social justice and workers' rights back into the public debate.

Let us bring some significant data on Italy:

• The average real wage has decreased by 2.9% in the last five years, the only case among the European and OECD countries
• The percentage of workers at risk of poverty has risen to 12.2% in 2023
• 24% of young people between 15 and 29 are neither in employment nor education (NEET), the highest rate in Europe
• The Gini's inequality index has grown from 0.33 in 2019 to 0.35 in 2023, indicating an increase in social inequalities
• in 2023-2024 the purchasing power of Italian families decreased by 3.5%
• job insecurity reached record levels, with 18.5% of workers employed on fixed-term contracts or other non-standard forms of job.

Not to mention the increase in the retirement age, the continued theft of severance pay and the constant reduction in the return on contributions.

Yet in Italy, despite economic conditions that are in many cases worse than in France, we are witnessing a surprising social stillness. Although the unionization rate in Italy stands at around 31.5% compared to 10.8% in France, paradoxically, this greater size of labor unions does not result in a greater capacity for mobilization. In 2023, Italy recorded around 1.2 million strike days, compared to 5.8 million in France, despite a similar composition of the working population.

Several reasons may explain this contradiction.

1. Union fragmentation. In Italy, the division between different unions and the attitude of class collaboration of the major ones often prevent coordinated and effective actions. While in France the CGT manages to be a point of reference for protest movements, in Italy the tactical and strategic divisions between the different organizations and the rivalries between them weaken their impact.

2. Production structure and precarization of work. The physical and territorial fragmentation of the production units, the numerical prevalence of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, perhaps centrally controlled by monopolies and large groups of financial capital, and the precarization of the Italian labor market, with a myriad of atypical agreements and a high rate of undeclared work, estimated at 12% of GDP, makes it more difficult to organize workers. The fear of losing one's job in an environment of high unemployment by 8.1% also acts as a powerful deterrent to mobilization.

3. Changes of political attitude. Since the 80s, labor unions have progressively moved from class conflict to bargaining, compromise, management of the existing situation and class cooperation, weakening their capacity for mass mobilization.

4. Individualization of discontent. Unlike France, where there is a strong tradition of collective expression of discontent, in Italy an individualistic and passive approach to social problems has spread widely in recent years. The class collaboration course of action of the major unions, and the support given by opportunist parties to the anti-workers and anti-popular policies of the bourgeois governments, have spread a sense of resignation and mistrust in the possibility of changing the current state of affairs through the collective struggle, with a growing detachment from active politics, or a "fan-like" attitude towards political debate. An example of this is the increase in abstention, which rose to 36% in the last elections to the national parliament and 51% in the European elections.

5. Information and media. The very poor, bordering on silence, media coverage of social issues and labor conflicts contributes to make invisible the problems of workers, spreading a feeling of "inevitability" of the existing conditions which weakens the will to fight and reduces the effectiveness and extent of protest actions.

6. Authoritarian legislation. In Italy in particular, but more generally throughout the EU, an authoritarian turn is taking place which, through the adoption of laws that severely restrict the right to strike, the freedom of expression and manifestation with the creation of new kinds of crimes related to the exercise of democratic, political and union rights of the proletariat. The penalties, both criminal and administrative, provided for by these decrees, falsely justified on the pretext of "security", have been aggravated and are a strong element of intimidation.

Speaking of prospects for the workers' struggles, despite the above some signs indicate possible developments in the near future.

1. Internationalization of struggles. The Europeanization of decision-making processes might push towards a greater coordination of struggles at the European level, with joint actions on issues such as wages, social rights and more, which might act as a boost for a resumption of political and union class struggle in Italy.

2. Unions renewal. In many countries, including Italy, there is a need to renew the unions organization, overcoming the current bureaucratic structures to re-establish a relationship of trust with workers. Greater attention must also be paid to precarious workers and those in the service sector, whether complementary or not to production, which are traditionally less unionized.

3. New forms of conflict. The traditional forms of strike must be complemented by new modes of mobilization, which take into account the contemporary productive context and the growing restrictions on the right to strike. If the bourgeoisie invents new legal and repressive expedients in an attempt to hinder the class struggle, the creativity of the proletariat will certainly be able to find new ways of fighting in step with the times.

4. Broader social alliances. There is a need to bring together the demands of other categories, such as agricultural workers and the self-employed, with those of the working class, in order to create around it broad social anti-capitalist socialist-oriented alliances. At the same time, the workers' movement must be enabled to tackle the other great issues of the contemporary world, such as environmental issues, gender equality issues, etc., with a class-based approach that aims at the overthrow of capitalism and bourgeois power. The tool for this to happen is a strong and modern communist party.

The strikes of 2024 in France demonstrate that, when moved, if not by a clear consciousness, at least by a class instinct and by organizations rooted in the workplaces, the working class may become a decisive force in contemporary society, able to influence and change the present state of affairs.

The contrast between the liveliness of the mobilizations in France and the relative stillness in Italy is not an immutable fact, but the result of specific historical, political and social configurations. As a communist party engaged in the class struggle, we are aware that this analysis places us before specific responsibilities. The fragmentation of the class forces and the ideological retreat of many historical
organizations have left a void that must be filled through a return to the scientific principles of Marxist-Leninist theory and the formation of the revolutionary party of the working class.

Our party, despite its current size, has the task of working on two parallel fronts: on the one hand, to contribute to the reconstruction of an authentic class consciousness among Italian workers, overcoming the fragmentation induced by capitalist development in the current phase and by the collaborationist approach of the major unions; on the other, to promote the international coordination of workers' struggles, in the awareness that the struggle against the offensive of capital is more effective if it is not constrained within the limits of national borders, but is conducted in concert with class brothers from other countries. Our challenge is to rebuild, together with our sister parties, class consciousness and the capacity for mobilization, strengthening the bonds of internationalist solidarity and bringing the fundamental contradiction between capital and labor back to the center of political debate.

The class struggle, which capitalists have never ceased to practice effectively, is not an obsolete concept, but a daily reality that requires clear analysis and determined action. In this spirit, we look at the experiences of our French comrades not as a model to be mechanically imitated, but in the belief that, even in 21st-century Europe, the organized working class can still write history.

LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
PROLETARIANS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!