My encounter with large factories
took place in 1969, in the midst of
the ‘hot autumn’. For a year and a half
I had visited a cultural club
in Sesto San Giovanni.
It was linked
to the Communist Party,
which was also a gathering spot
for all minorities
and renegades,
unorthodox groups including Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists,
people of the Hammer and Sickle group, but above all
it was frequented by representatives
of the so-called trade union left, in particular figures
who were quite legendary
of the working class in Sesto and the surrounding area, including Pirelli.
For example, there was Renzo Baricelli,
a prominent trade unionist from Bicocca.
And others, especially
the trade union left wing of the time within the FIOM.
And then it was frequented by a figure who was the most charismatic,
the most important, who, strictly speaking, cannot be
classified as belonging
to the trade union left because throughout his life he remained
loyal to official positions but he
was a charismatic figure, that was Antonio Pizzinato.
And Pizzinato and Baricelli liked me, also
politically speaking, and it was they who
somehow got me into the factory.
They got me in
so that I could then carry out
trade union activities
after putting me through a couple of quick
trade union training courses.
In the companies
that is, the maintenance companies,
which were external companies but which nevertheless supplied
a very significant proportion of
of workers who were assigned
to routine or non-routine maintenance of the large
factories in Sesto – that is, essentially all the factories of the Breda Group,
all the factories of the Falck group and also Pirelli.
The reason was that, compared to
the accelerated processes of unionisation and
trade union political growth of the
regular workforce in large factories,
the maintenance companies had a very low
unionisation rate and thus represented
a point of weakness within
the Sesto working class as a whole.
There are many reasons for this.
In some respects they were also privileged, because despite,
facing intensive exploitation and working conditions
that were worse than those
of the regular workers in the large factories
they were certainly paid better.
They had long working hours, they worked overtime.
On average, each worker did at least 10 hours a day, but it was common
for people to do 14 or 12 hours.
To get around the regulation
they would do a 6-hour shift
at Breda and then
clock in and do another
6-hour shift perhaps at Falck.
Then there was holiday work because
every Sunday there was routine maintenance
let’s say at the rolling mills at
Breda Siderurgica, and there were large hordes of maintenance workers
who would carry out this type of operation.
So if you consider the higher wages, the overtime and
the Sunday work, then they were in a relatively
integrated situation,
and therefore
not very unionised. Or if they
were in a union, they were in CISNA, which was still active in 1974
when we raided the CISNA headquarters in Sesto,
seizing the register with
with the membership cards. The vast majority were
Breda workers, among whom CISNA
essentially played
a role as a yellow union, a collaborationist union.
So there was an interest in trying to
initiate a process of of unionisation
even within these maintenance companies.
My recruitment was made easier by the fact that
in Sesto there were a few companies, a couple in particular,
which were, in a sense, direct offshoots of the Communist Party
and the trade union, because they had been founded by former partisans
and, above all, by certain workers
of a high professional calibre who had been expelled
from the factories in the 1950s and who had
re-trained as small business owners, with the help of the party and the trade union.
They had set up these types of companies.
With some help I got hired into one of these subcontracted companies
and into these large factories in ’69.
Generally speaking, aided by the
overall climate of the
development and growing awareness of the workers’ struggles
even within these companies certain aspects gradually began
to change and people started to participate in the struggles,
even though there were instances of strike-breaking.
They were actually quite frequent.
I remember
one occasion during the collective contract dispute 1969
and in 1970, during another internal struggle at Pirelli.
The subcontracted workers
were barricaded in, scabbing flat out in a maintenance workshop.
Me and some other young lads went with the welding torches
and basically we welded them shut inside the workshop
and that was the reason why Pirelli then sacked me and said
that I was completely undesirable that I would not be allowed inside
a company dealing with Pirelli, so I carried on at Falck or Breda.
Generally speaking, 1969, as I remember it
was a great movement whose characteristics
are that the working class for the first time
recognised itself as a major force,
as a major collective subject
capable of aligning its own perspective
with other social sectors as well.
It conquered a significant role as a social protagonist
which extended its influence progressively
into the wider social sphere. I recall when
the factory councils
were established,
the delegates from the large factories
who were elected, say, in the Bergamo and Brianza areas
they went on to form
a social authority in the area alongside, the mayor
and the parish priest, as eminent figures to whom people would also go
to seek advice on matters
that often went beyond the direct workers’ struggles.
They essentially became a recognised social authority.
Frankly, I don’t recall there being a revolutionary consciousness,
it was rather the idea of workers power that was the order of the day
in the collective imagination of the working class in 1969.
On this matter I have always disagreed with
a true workerist interpretation, (which discards political content)
as certain tendencies were
already present and anticipated:
the emergence of workers autonomy,
not only in the forms of struggle that were beginning to take shape.
Some characteristics developed that were more radical than
the traditional ones of the working class.
Also in terms of content
these struggles were absolutely avant-garde
compared to traditional trade union concepts.
What comes to mind, for example, is egalitarianism, which begins
right there and which is a fundamental theme because
it establishes
a concept of the working-class community
which is defined in an egalitarian manner
based on behaviour and relationships
which are forged in the struggle
and no longer according to professional profile
or according to their formal position within the production process.
Previously, the foremen in the factory
tended to be higher skilled workers,
but things began to change.
Of course, they change because the overall composition changes,
because as early as ’69 there was a
fairly massive surge of a new type of working class.
What is commonly referred to
as the mass worker who is beginning to play a
dominant role
not only in quantitative terms but above all in qualitative terms.
In terms of the struggles
which also give rise
to new political elements.
The skilled working class gave only a relative
attention to certain aspects of the workers’ condition in general.
Take hazardous working conditions.
There was a kind of working-class pride that sometimes manifested itself
almost as a kind of heroism. It was not only the trade unions
that were monetising health. Also the skilled type of worker
had a profoundly different perspective on these issues
because it is their conception of life
in the sense that for them the factory, the work
the pride in their work, the ability to do their job well,
the ability to do it better than the bosses or the owner or the engineer
was the defining element of their existence.
For the mass worker, on the other hand,
life in the factory coincided with the struggle and its new relationships,
but then real life began outside when
working hours ended. So they wanted to leave work
the least tired as possible
so that it was still possible to have a whole other range of experiences
that weren’t just those of the factory.
Speaking of the change in class composition
I believe we must also highlight another
aspect, in addition to the well-known
constantly repeated talk of the mass worker
namely the process of increased education and
the fact that in the factory
in general
in those years there were
an impressive number of student workers,
of workers who attended evening classes
and who returned to the factory
not only with more
professional knowledge
but also with a
more advanced cultural background and a higher level of political awareness.
Because the the movement of students
and evening students
I believe
was more significant
both in terms of quality and in terms of quantity
than the secondary school students’ movement.
This meant that
there was a working-class
with a student section that had these characteristics
and the introduction of technicians into the factory
who came from this experience of struggle
and political debate in evening schools.
Because in many factories, for example at Pirelli or Telettra,
alongside the
the mass of workers who were fighting and taking action,
very often the vanguards were
the technicians who came from this sort of background.
Certainly the most significant factor in terms of general behaviour was
was the so-called ‘mass worker’—this is just to say that the changes
taking place within the factories were were manifold and diverse.
But it cannot be reduced solely to
that worker figure.
1969 was essentially this:
A significant agency of the worker and recognising oneself
as an agent capable of altering the balance of power
not only within the factory but also outside it.
Certain concepts emerged
from these struggles later on,
however some aspects were clear straight away.
The struggles in 1969 were preceded
by the contract dispute for the chemical and textile workers
which had been postponed by a year. They took place in ’68 with struggles
as sensational as those in the petrochemical sector at Porto Marghera or even
the struggle which
was an icon of 1968, namely the Marzotto struggle in which
the Marzotto workers
waged a fierce struggle
in open opposition
to the trade union bureaucracy.
They destroy the statue of Marzotto and clash with the police.
They anticipated later struggles in terms of behaviour
but also in terms of outright rupture with the unions,
through a struggle, and an organisation,
that was completely autonomous and alternative,
which foreshadowed what would happen in the years that followed.
The cycle of struggles of ’69 came to an end for me personally
when I had to go for military service.
I returned to the factory more or less with the same trick,
actually it was slightly different.
When the head of personnel was on leave he was replaced
by a personnel manager who was a friend of the trade unions.
So I was hired by Sirti,
which was a factory operating in the
telecommunications sector. There was an important aspect,
because the headquarters had its offices in the business district of Milan
and that became a
major issue in ’73 because back then the business district
was enormous.
There were lots of technical staff and office workers
even those with a very low profile
in terms of trade unionism. And yet they played a strategic role
in the sense that blocking the business district
with strikes
during the collective contract dispute
was clearly of great importance.
In fact
the contract dispute of ’73
was a hard struggle with daily
picket lines, clashes with scabs clashes with the police etc..
It was a context of greater radicalism compared to 1969.
The high point, as everyone knows
was reached with the occupation of FIAT
by the so-called ‘red scarves’, or ‘the hooded’, which was
a workers’ initiative of paramilitary dimensions
which commanded and controlled the factory for a certain period.
But these forms of struggles were essentially replicated
across almost the entire country, namely the blocking of goods,
sabotage and extremely violent factory-internal demonstrations.
These were characteristics that spread like wildfire
throughout that period of struggle and marked
a new horizon as well.
It must also be said that at the same time
especially in the south, in Naples and in other parts of the South,
there were
experiences in which workers,
starting from the
organised nuclei
of the large factories,
launched attacks on the prefectures, thereby bringing
the confrontation not just outside the factory because that had already happened
though it had always been linked to the dimension
of the capital-labour struggle,
whereas here for the first time,
the workers
attacked
the state and its forces
operating
in the urban areas.
This led to the idea of
a new phase
of workers’ struggles.
At the end
of that collective bargaining dispute
of ’73, practically at the start of 1974,
I joined a large factory for the first time
in a straight-forward manner, in the sense that I applied
and Breda Fucine hired me.
Breda generally didn’t fear anyone
unlike other factories for example Falck, where
essentially
you’d get in with a letter of recommendation
from the parish priest of your village
from Brianza, Lodigiano or from
the Bergamo area,
which acted as a kind of background check.
Breda wasn’t afraid of anyone partly because they thought:
“ We put you to work at the furnace
and then we see how you cope”.
But anyway,
at Breda Fucine
management felt safe
probably also because,
if we’re to be honest,
the presence of the CGIL trade union
and the FIOM guaranteed them
a degree of control.
The unions had long guaranteed them
significant internal control within the factory,
but then this situation fell into crisis.
We must remember that there were departments at
Breda, like La Forgia
and La Tempera, where
in ’74, 98% of workers were members of the FIOM.
Impressive figures,
extremely impressive.
It must be said that this organised force
meant that there was a certain security.
There was genuine factory despotism
but the trade unionists certainly counted for something.
There was a situation from a disciplinary point of view
that was absolutely
not comparable
to other factories in this respect. This type of co-management
certainly worked, but the working conditions
were terrible, first and foremost due to the
absolute technological backwardness of the factory.
Physical manual labour was absolutely predominant
and it was gruelling, highly hazardous and involving silicosis.
Workers reached retirement age and died three days later.
On this front there was very little awareness.
Even independently from the trade unions,
there was a working-class mentality
of professional working-class pride that was also very male chauvinistic.
Meaning, an idea
of physical strength and of resistance. I remember that
after two days at the factory they put me
at the hammers and it was very hard work and there were plenty of macho jokes
I was married and the workers knew it and all day the refrain was
“Tonight with your wife you won’t get it up…"
“Call us, who after two shifts at work, will still do it to her”, etc..
Just to say that you had to
deal with that kind of mentality.
But even at Breda Fucine
there were
two departments,
the turning department and the rods department,
where workers were much
less skilled, mainly in the
rods department.
A completely different kind of working class developed there.
Really completely different. In the rods department
You must imagine
that it reached
daily rates of 40% of absenteeism,
in a factory where the other traditional departments
would go to work even when ill, because it looked bad for a worker
who was a member of the PCI or the union that you stay at home
even when you’re ill. Also because, well,
it’s not just because of pride, but because the factory is their world
their own sphere, so
frankly they didn’t even know what to do
if they didn’t go to the factory.
All this is clearly very different
for the new workers,
many of them immigrants, but in any case with characteristics
that were completely different.
From these departments
behaviours emerged, developed and grew
which are perfectly aligned with those found in the workshops
at FIAT or other factories
like Magneti Marelli or Alfa Romeo where apart from
absenteeism and indiscipline, there was a questioning
of roles and a
refusal to accept any kind of command, neither from the superiors
of the factory
nor from the trade union. In other words “not giving a shit”,
initially even with a
pre-political character which only later, through debate
and participation in the struggle, took on more defined characteristics.
There is no denying that initially much
of the aspect of indiscipline
was not very developed in class terms,
but it was nevertheless
a beautiful raw material
to discuss and work on.
There is this detachment, this separateness,
this non-recognition of any kind of hierarchy
other than that which is constructed as an antagonism, a struggle.
There are these experiences,
the same experiences of sabotage
and experiences
of relative violence in the factory especially during
the internal protest marches and outside during the
demonstrations. There is therefore an alignment,
unfortunately of a minority,
because it is a minority
in quantitative rather than
qualitative terms, because in the struggles it is this minority who is in charge.
This is obvious, but generally speaking
they are a numerical minority
compared to the traditional working class which
in factories such as Breda,
more so than in other companies,
proved to be fairly impervious and
hardly detachable from the hegemony
of the social democratic leadership.
In the struggles
at particular moments of tension
a shift may occur towards radical positions
but in terms of representation and organisation, the split
at Breda was very radical, whilst in other factories, such as
FIAT or Magneti
there was a mixture,
there isn’t a dualism
and such a radical separation
that you see at
at Breda Sidurgica, for example.
The radical new generation and the traditional working class
remained two worlds
that, except in moments of intense struggle and tension,
they hardly ever manage to meet or even communicate because they are
two different worlds, that is to say
to put it in terms of social customs,
in the rods department
it was not uncommon to see workers rolling joints at work
while from the average perspective of a Communist Party worker at the forges
someone who smokes joints should have been sent to Siberia
for re-education, just so we’re clear.
We’re still talking about
the long-haired lot,
about differences
in culture,
radical differences that
will indeed lead to the fact that
the new working class
while being important and significant
fundamentally remained the story
of a minority that never succeeded
unlike as in other situations, such as at Magneti Marelli
to gain the hegemony over the entire factory
or over the vast majority of workers,
precisely because the differences between two groups
are so strongly marked, in such a consistent manner
that they have very little chance of communicating at all.
The only ones standing at the gates, fighting alongside their comrades.
True.
The assembly proceeds little by little,
this is not a sign of maturity.
Each of you must be a man not because you wear trousers,
but a man because you must have a brain, and take on more responsibility.
If there is an occupation, it will also be our occupation.
We will work with all of you night and day,
if necessary, but all of us together.
Agnelli, the women leave the kitchen,
they enter in hard struggle
on the shop-floor.
Within this situation
of new forms of struggle
the question of
representation,
mass participation and
self-organisation
began to
manifest itself.
The question
of a different
kind of organisation emerged,
also in 1973 at Sirti, where
the collective of workers and technicians
was created
and also at Breda, although
it never reached,
both numerically and qualitatively,
a role comparable to autonomous workers’ committees
in other neighbourhoods or other factories.
These forms
of autonomous organisation did emerge, which had
their own substance
and visibility, above all
during the struggles both inside the factory and at demonstrations,
even in a visible manner because the way they were organised,
the use of large sticks
with tiny red flags attached
the ropes they used at marches,
so there was a visible otherness
from a militant perspective
with a role that it certainly played within
the factory in terms of the struggles.
There is an episode at Breda,
which is, however, very important and quite indicative of that.
This happened in 1974
during the Sossi kidnapping by the Brigate Rosse.
The trade unions called for a series
of strikes, two-hour strikes
against terrorism
with general assemblies across groups of factories,
not just factory by factory,
because I remember that we took part.
From Breda Fucine Termoelettrico
we went to Magneti Marelli
and spent two hours together.
There was of course
a huge debate, a right chaos, around this kidnapping.
I was attacked over this,
even personally, by name
by a trade union representative, actually from the PSI.
In his speech on stage
he pointed me out as one of the terrorists
who was involved in the events under discussion.
I must say, to his credit and in his memory that
Antonio Pizzinato himself
spoke up later to say: “Chicco, we all know him.
He might be a bit of a wanker, but he’s one of us.”
But above all, the key point is that
a motion put forward by us comrades,
more or less autonomously,
from the committee
this motion was passed
so it had to be a 2-hour paid assembly
rather than a 2-hour strike.
This speaks volumes namely the fact that
in 1974, there was still
a possibility for political action which, at certain moments, became
a position taken on by the majority.
Obviously, those who voted
to convert the two hours strike
into a paid assembly
did not all agree with the kidnapping of Sossi,
needless to say, or with
the line I was taking at the factory, but
they considered,
not the Sossi kidnapping,
but what we represented in the factory, as
a possible political option or, at any rate, one worth discussing,
not as an enemy to be isolated or driven out.
Because, back then in the factory
especially the right-wing faction of the FIOM had transformed
the discussion about the kidnapping into a discussion about our
political existence in the factory.
They’ve been screwed because then the majority of the workers
were saying:
“We can’t help but agree that they’re a bunch of idiots,
but they’re workers like us and above all, what they’re saying
is a line that fits.
You might agree or disagree
with the goals
of the struggle
but anyway, they recognised
a right to the presence of
expressions of such positions as internal to the workforce.
If we think about the changes in the factories within a short span of time
we would have struggled to believe
that such things could happen.
That time there was still
a level
political viability and recognition
of these positions which circulated absolutely freely
within the factory and were recognised as plausible, even though
obviously not by the majority,
but nevertheless it was a recognised element.
Alongside the militancy within the factory,
which was predominant,
there were also other forms of political activism
more generally.
In the early 1970s in Sesto San Giovanni
we all gravitated somewhat towards an
an organisation called the Lenin Circle
which was quite well-established
in certain factories, such as Magneti Marelli,
although particularly among students,
and not just sixth-formers, but in this case evening-school students,
especially those at the ITIS,
less so from secondary school.
The Lenin Circle was essentially a group
that belonged to the sphere
of Operaismo / Workerism.
I subsequently joined Lotta Continua in ’72.
towards the end of ’72. I was fascinated
precisely by the quality
of the workers’ organisation
that Lotta Continua had in some large factories
especially in Turin and Milan, at Alfa Romeo and so on.
I considered it the focal point,
capable of transcending localism
and particularity, which were the limits of the Lenin Circle.
Within Lotta Continua
there were echoes of a debate
which was politically more advanced
but also on extremely sensitive issues
so to speak, such as
the question of violence/force
which was the euphemism used
to define the problem of
paramilitary organisation.
This issue was seen as
the development, acceleration
and radicalisation of Lotta Continua’s demo self-defence units.
But in any case the issue of violence
was deeply rooted in situations of struggle
not just workers’ struggles in workplaces
but also struggles in the neighbourhoods
because there were squats but there were also issues
linked to enforced rent reduction
or reappropriation, which certainly
was a more mature and mass-based form in the years
from ’75 to ’76,
but which, in any case, had also existed before.
And these are all forms of struggle that concern the working class.
The episodes of reappropriation, the enforced reduction of supermarket prices,
they were forms of proletarian shopping, in the sense that people were told
to be at the supermarket at a certain time
at the checkouts with trolleys full of goods, the factory workers
then started a ruckus and would rush out with their trolleys.
They had solved the problem of domestic supplies
for a week or ten days, and there was
considerable participation.
These points of discussion were also present within
the factory,
even with direct worker participation.
There was no separation, it didn’t all end
within the confines of the department
or the department struggle.
In Lotta Continua there were discussions about violence
about the need to organise.
A massive acceleration
was the occupation of FIAT by the so-called ‘red scarves’
and the assaults on the prefectures
because from that moment on we began to think
about the fact that there was a maturity among the workers, or rather a
a component that was still in the minority but which was nevertheless capable
in moments of struggle to exercise real hegemony
over sectors of the working class much broader than itself
and which was acting
precisely on the terrain of violent struggle
of self-organisation and of an understanding
that the level of confrontation was now shifting
in concrete terms, not
in ideological and revolutionary terms, but in material terms
starting from the factory departments,
in terms of power, because the strength of the working class had grown
so much so as to take shape in the large factories
the existence of a dualism of power which was a situation that
obviously could not be expected to
endure over time.
Ultimately, one power had to have supremacy over the other.
It was inconceivable that it could last and that therefore
there was a problem
of preparing for the
radicalisation of the conflict
necessitated by events,
beyond subjective will. This was an idea that, in some strata
among the working class, was now gaining ground.
This debate caused
Lotta Continua to enter a crisis,
like other groups,
Such as Potere Operaio.
These groups showed a Certain backwardness,
an inability to tackle
in new terms the situation that was
taking shape and that
required transformative measures at a general level in political terms,
in personal terms in terms of militancy.
We were entering a phase in which
it is no longer the phase where you just hand out leaflets or engage in confrontation in the factory.
Something different was starting to be required as well, and at this point
clearly everyone is
called upon to step up.
Choices that were made
were not always personal choices they were also collective choices because
there were whole groups, for example In Sesto San Giovanni
about twenty of us left Lotta Continua
between the end of 1973 and the start of 1974.
Based on a hypothesis precisely of this sort, to begin
to consider the introduction of organisational elements
even openly illegal and paramilitary
to offer these structures
as a tool for mass struggles.
It so happens that
more or less around that time
in various places and in different situations
the same
intentions take shape, and this is essentially the process
of the formation of the so-called Workers’ Autonomy,
that is, the first actions begin to emerge in which we see
more or less the same willingness
and the same determination
to do things.
Gradually the situation builds up until.
There is a pivotal moment
the days of April 1975, in which the trigger
is an element linked to fascism
because a fascist shot and killed a comrade.
In reality, then the response of the workers’ autonomy,
was to take over the squares and streets.
This certainly went beyond the anti-fascist element.
Biographically,
what still survived of the
extra-parliamentary groups during the April days
was rigidly focused on pursuing limited anti-fascist objectives.
There was a very violent incident, bordering on a
physical confrontation with one of the groups, Avanguardia Operaia,
because they objected us attacking the housing administration
with molotov cocktails, thereby giving continuity
to an element of the mass workers’ struggles
of that period, which involved
the refusal to pay rents, bills and so on.
The squares and the streets
took shape precisely as an element of counter-power:
“Today we’re in charge,
we decide where we go what we do and how we do it.”
And in fact,
apart from anti-fascist objectives, we also attacked the
mainstream newspapers.
This opened
a rift that would prove irreconcilable
with the rest of the
extra-parliamentary left from that moment onwards.
I gave up my factory job
because this new form of militancy
requires a commitment
of a different kind, full-time with other characteristics.
Also, my presence in the factory
was beginning to become dangerous from the point of view
of repression and the possibility and being arrested.
Essentially, in 1975 I made myself untraceable.
I haven’t had any arrest warrants yet but there were reports, complaints
and so I chose to live in a state of semi-clandestinity
which was relative, because even then
in ’76 it happened
that we stormed the canteen of the upper management and
we’d sit at the tables eating together with our comrades
working at Magneti Marelli without paying, of course
and nobody said anything to us because back then we had, how shall I put it,
we had a role.
This role wasn’t
linked to our subjective characteristics
or to us being bullies, but to the fact
that the workers of Magneti Marelli had our backs.
There was a wide opening,
it was a semi-illegality.
But basically from there
it completely changed my life
which then began to be much less
indeed, no longer tied
to the world of the factory,
but to a different kind of militancy.