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Resistance grows to Berlusconi’s austerity
ON 6 September hundreds of thousands of Italian
workers responded to a call by the biggest trade union, CGIL, for a
general strike. They demonstrated in more than a hundred towns and
cities, protesting against the vicious budget (‘manovra’) pushed through
by the government of Silvio Berlusconi under the diktat of the European
Union and in response to an escalating crisis in the financial markets.
The budget slashes public spending, increases VAT and will destroy some
of the most important rights won by workers in previous decades.
Together with Greece, Italy is being battered by the
financial and economic eurozone storm. When the 2008 crisis broke, the
Italian economy appeared to be weathering it better than many other
countries. There was no banking collapse, and the policy of ‘cassa
integrazione’ (temporarily laying off workers on a proportion of their
normal wages) meant that unemployment remained below the European
average. Unlike Spain and Ireland, Italy did not appear to go from boom
to bust overnight and, for many, 2008 seemed merely a prolongation of
the Italian economy’s long-term stagnation. That all changed in
July/August of this year when the speculators turned their sights from
Greece to Italy and the eurozone seemed to be heading for a Lehman
Brothers moment.
The 21 July eurozone summit had agreed another €109
billion package of loans to ‘save’ Greece and the establishment of a
permanent stability fund to help other eurozone countries in trouble.
But there was no new money on offer and it was clear that the €440
billion fund would be completely inadequate if Italy were to suffer the
same fate as Greece and need a bailout.
At €1,900 billion (120% of GDP) Italy’s public debt
is 23% of that of the total eurozone, bigger than that of Greece,
Ireland and Portugal combined. Italian bond yields (the interest rates
that the Italian government would have to pay to finance its debt) shot
up to clearly unsustainable levels (above 6%). Desperate to prevent
Italy (and Spain) going the same way as Greece – with the threat of
default triggering a banking crisis and possibly bringing the whole euro
edifice tumbling down – the European Central Bank stepped in and spent
billions of euros buying government bonds.
As usual, there was a price to be paid. In return,
Berlusconi’s government had to pass a much more draconian budget than it
was originally planning. Of course, it is workers and sections of the
middle class who will suffer the most. Huge cuts in public spending,
especially to local councils, will decimate services, VAT increases will
hit the poorest the hardest. Attacks on workplace rights will make it
easier for bosses to sack workers.
All of this was meant to placate the markets, with a
pledge to balance the budget by 2013. The budget ‘has saved Italy’, said
Berlusconi. But, within hours of it being passed, yields on government
bonds were at 5.6%, and Moody’s credit agency was considering a
downgrade of Italy’s debt rating. Voices in Europe and Italy called
loudly for another, even more savage budget that would wield the axe
even further against public spending, privatise more public services and
increase the pension age. On 20 September, Standard & Poor’s reduced
Italy’s rating from A+ to A.
Political crisis is feeding economic crisis and vice
versa. There is huge scepticism that a prime minister mired in sex and
corruption scandals, and a dysfunctional government wracked with
divisions, will implement the measures which the EU, financial markets
and the Italian bosses’ organisation, Confindustria, deem necessary to
stem the crisis. The budget process itself was a complete farce with the
‘manovra’ changed five times. Berlusconi resisted policies, such as a
wealth tax, which would upset his supporters. His coalition partners,
the Lega Nord, protested at local authority cuts, as this is where they
have their main base, and against possible rises in the pension age.
Both governing parties are in crisis. There is
rebellion in Berlusconi’s party, the PdL (People of Freedom), with
sections aware that he is now totally discredited and openly calling for
him to go. His opinion poll ratings reached a new low of 24% in the
third week of September. But he has made it clear that he is not
prepared to stand down of his own volition, even as the scandals mount
and newspapers are full of transcripts of nauseous phone calls between
him and Giampaolo Tarantini, the man charged with procuring women for
his sex parties.
The ranks of the Lega Nord are in uproar because the
cuts to local councils are seriously eroding its support. Umberto Bossi
is struggling to keep the party together and his leadership is being
challenged by Roberto Maroni. Mounting pressures could force the Lega
Nord to pull the plug on Berlusconi before 2013 (the end of this
government’s term).
For Confindustria, the best outcome would be a
national unity government or a ‘technical’, non-party, administration.
Alessandro Profumo, former head of Italy’s biggest bank, Unicredit, is
already being groomed as a possible leader of such a government. The
hope is that a crisis government of this kind would bring the unions on
board in the name of ‘national sacrifice’, perhaps with a limited wealth
tax offered in return for more brutal attacks on workers and sections of
the middle class.
The fantastic response to the 6 September general
strike showed how workers are prepared to resist those attacks. Even
though the CGIL called the strike immediately after the summer holidays
with no time to organise workplace meetings, the number of workers
striking and demonstrating was impressive. Significantly, some
rank-and-file members of the CISL federation joined the strike even
though their leader Raffaele Bonanni had called it ‘demented’.
Many workers voiced a lack of confidence in the CGIL
leaders. Once again, they are pursuing their usual tactic of bringing
the workers out on strike to vent their anger and frustration before
retreating into talks with right-wing union federations, the government
and the bosses. Their ‘strategy’ now is for two separate demonstrations
in different sectors and then a national demo at the end of the year.
The opposition Partito Democratico (PD) successfully
added a last minute amendment to the budget calling for a review of
article 8 of the budget. Article 8 would make it far easier to sack
workers, and even the conciliatory union federations, CISL and UIL, had
to condemn it. Clearly, the amendment is aimed at taking the steam out
of the movement. This will not necessarily be the outcome, however. The
metalworkers’ union, FIOM, will soon begin negotiations on its national
contract and could once again be propelled to the forefront of the
struggle. If, as looks likely, the crisis deepens and attacks on workers
escalate, FIOM could become the focal point for industrial and social
resistance as it was in October 2010, but this time on a much broader
level.
The position put forward by
Controcorrente (CWI
Italy), for a political alternative rooted in the workers’ movement,
gained an important echo on the demonstration on 16 October last year.
Now Giorgio Cremaschi, president of FIOM’s central committee, has called
a national meeting on 1 October to discuss the question of a political
alternative. Controcorrente has been invited to attend. We are proposing
that the meeting should agree to establish an independent pole of
attraction to the left of the so-called centre-left. The latter includes
the PD, Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Left Ecology Freedom), led by Nicchi
Vendola, and Italia dei Valori (Italy of Values), led by Antonio di
Pietro, and is looking to replicate the ‘Olive Tree’ coalition of the
failed government of Romano Prodi.
The failure of the Olive Tree paved the way for
Berlusconi and the collapse of the PRC (Partito della Rifondazione
Comunista). We are also calling for the setting up of local meetings and
coordinating bodies. The national meeting is attracting a lot of
interest. Against the background of a growing economic, political and
social crisis, initiatives of this kind indicate the future potential
for the development of a workers’ party, which is so badly needed in
Italy in this critical period.
Christine Thomas
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