Grassroots syndicalist general strike on 27 January

Against the worsening crisis - Support the workers' mobilizations - Develop solidarity and mutual aid

We recognize that the strike on 27 January called by the USB, Unicobas, Orsa, SICobas, Snater and USI unions is an opportunity for this renewal of the ability to mobilize of the workers' movement in Italy and as anarchist communists, we declare our solidarity with the workers of all kinds and with all those who join the strike and participate in the demonstration in Rome on Friday 27 January. [Italian]

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Grassroots syndicalist general strike on 27 January

Against the worsening crisis

Support the workers' mobilizations

Develop solidarity and mutual aid

2012 has opened without too many worries for those in Italy who hold 50% of the country's wealth, that is to say the 10% of the well-off who are part of the 1% of rich people throughout the world that prevents 99% of the world's population from accessing its wealth. Globalization has thus been a success, in the sense of global impoverishment. And Italian workers are now beginning to see the seriousness of the situation. With the support of a huge majority in Parliament and to the shame of certain trade unions who no longer have Berlusconi on their side, the Monti techno-government has closely followed the script written by the European Union and re-established the harshness of the class reality: the dominant, exploiting classes will not be paying anything, the dominated, exploited classes will have to pay for everything: they will pay the public debt, they will pay for social services, they will pay for assistance and healthcare in order to save themselves and the country.

This rescue will not cost anything for our entrepreneurs, financers, bankers and the tax-evasion economy, whose profits and goods have not suffered loss of any kind. The so-called Phase 1 of the Monti techno-government has now come to a close with an enormous draining of financial resources, taken from waged workers, pensioners and home-owners (of a single house). In the meantime any chance for an increase in wages has been blocked with a freeze on public sector agreements, despite rising inflation, and with the cancellation of the national collective agreement by FIAT and the metalworkers sector.

This unilateral, parallel and interconnected action on the part of Marchionne and Confindustria introduces into the context of acute crisis an element that is not so much simply the taking of our money, but the taking of our freedom and the dignity of workers, our right to organize ourselves in the workplace, to protest, to strike. Punishment and dismissals will be the fate of anyone who does not buckle down. And this is the basis on which the government's so-called Phase 2 lies.

So then, 2012 opens with a great many worries for everyone in Italy who still lives on a steady wage, or indeed an unsteady wage because they live on short-term job contracts and redundancy pay. The Monti techo-government is now getting to grips with its second executive order: easy dismissals and privatizations. This is a matter of re-writing the Workers' Statute and in particular art. 18, by raising the threshold for easy dismissals, or eliminating the obligation to apply the national collective agreement in the railways. As far as liberalization is concerned, there is the plan to push public services of a certain economic importance onto the market, by reducing so-called "in-house" management. This is perhaps the aspect that interests the government most, although it hides behind the liberalization of taxi services, pharmacies, newsagents', etc.

In these years of a crisis which is sure to be long and aggressive, the response from the people and the workers has been discontinuous and disunited, with mobilizations alternating between those with massive participation and those with little. We know there is no mechanical connection between a capitalist crisis and renewed class struggle. It is for this reason that the mobilizations and the struggles that are proposed must be supported and made the most of, despite our being aware of the limits that they often have, due to their partial nature or the lack of a clear project for workers' unity and unifying objectives. The world of combative syndicalism, in particular, made up of workers who still want to play a first-hand role individually and collectively in the protection of their rights and in formulating demands in their workplaces and in their communities - whatever organization they belong to - is the best placed to begin this action to re-launch, re-motivate and protect grassroots union activity, to express their clear social, proletarian opposition to the crisis, while at the same time build a struggle front that can really face up to the situation.

It is also necessary for them to act in order to soften the blows of the crisis, by developing forms of solidarity and mutual aid between workers, through eco-solidarity networks in the community.

We recognize that the strike on 27 January called by the USB, Unicobas, Orsa, SICobas, Snater and USI unions is an opportunity for this renewal of the ability to mobilize of the workers' movement in Italy and as anarchist communists, we declare our solidarity with the workers of all kinds and with all those who join the strike and participate in the demonstration in Rome on Friday 27 January.

We have along period of crisis ahead of us; there are already plans for other mobilizations, such as the FIOM demonstration on 11 February. But we need the involvement of all the grassroots opposition forces.

Workers' unity!

Social front against the crisis!

Labour Commission

Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici

23 January 2012