We reproduce here a leaflet published in Battaglia Comunista in November 2004 that the Internationalist Communist Party distributed at the FIAT factory in Turin. Beyond the interest for informations about the reality of the living and struggling conditions of the working class that the bourgeois medias ignore and hush up deliberately, the intervention and the political orientation the comrades put forwards is in our opinion to underline and to greet. It's precisely all the contrary of the undifferentist and defeatist position of the "new" ICC which, rejecting its own experience and its own political and militant lessons of the years 1970-1980, gives up to the bourgeois forces, unions and leftists, the field of the struggle
What is the problematic which is posed to the working class and to revolutionaries when the bourgeoisie and its unions anticipate, or try to derail, the workers anger and its reaction by organizing "Days of action", demonstrations, 24 hours strikes, indeed 4 hours as in Italy ? Of course, there is no absolute rule, nor a permanent, invariable, concrete orientation, nor a systematic attitude. All depends of the immediate conditions and dynamic. Nevertheless, there is an "invariant" method and principle : not to give up the political field to the bourgeoisie, not to let the unions act at their liking, and to present permanently - obviously in regards with the militant and organizational possibilities - the proletarian alternative of the moment.
It's this method and this political concern that the leaflet expresses and defends quite rightly when it calls the workers of the FIAT not to remain disgusted and passive in front of the strikes - "intimidating and menacing" as now defends it the present ICC - of "protest" organized by the unions and to "transform" them into real strike and real struggle to take back... the ICC expression of the years 1980.
AGAINST THE FARCE STRIKES, ORGANIZE OUR STRIKES !Despite the gravity and the permanence of the boss attack against us, workers of the FIAT, and of course against the workers of the subcontrator companies, the unions carries on calling for farce strikes which cost us, but which are actually inoffensive for the boss. Some hours of strikes here, a demonstration - even announced in advance - associated with a highway blockage accorded with the forces of the boss order there, it matters to make see the unions defend the working class as well as avoiding they lose its control. Results ? Zero ! Worst, the results are not only negative for us. With the Cassa integrazione (1), the farce strikes, the wages already miserable in themselves, if we succeed more or less to survive until the end of the month, we must resolve the stocks flow problems of the FIAT. About the causes of the crisis which affects FIAT, the union offers false explanations to put forwards its wrong struggle goals : the crisis isn't due to the bad management of the company, but to the bitter world competition between the car giants for fighting over market parts. This competition, in its turn, is due to the deep crisis which capitalism struggles against since more than 30 years. Opel (General Motors) and Volkwagen are more or less in the same conditions which expresses that our fate doesn't depend on the capitalist competence of such or such manager, but on the need for capitalism in great difficulty which, to pull through, has no other way than the attack against the wages and the increase of the workers exploitation. It's in these moments that the fundamental opposition of interest between workers and bosses becomes obvious. It's in these moments that appears the "social fireman" function of the union. It's clear then that the demoralization and the just disgust for this farce push many of us to reject the strike and to withdraw on oneself. But this choice is extremely dangerous. We must fiercely refuse the losing policy (for us) of the union made of farce strikes, indeed ! But we must not refuse the struggle if it's a true struggle. To prolong the strike beyond the term fixed by the union would be a step forward. To begin to organize the struggle autonomously and, if necesary, against the union policy of defeat and collaboration, would be again an other step to take in our hands the true defence of our interests so much times, too much times not to say always, betrayed and sold by the unions. There is nobody who can really defend ourselves but ourselves ! For us, workers - whether we are from the FIAT or not - the only alternative is the one of true self-organization of the struggle, from the rank and file, beyond and against any unionist logic, in unity with the other categories of workers, "permanent" or precarious. Only the workers assemblies can decide why, how and when going on strike. Only a struggle founded on these principles is able to break the laws and the agreements of the class ennemies, concretely on the terrain of the defence of our immediate and general interests. For the break of social peace, it means against the false harmony of the interests of any categories between the working class and the bosses ! There is no national interest, and even less of the company, above the one of the classes ! For the workers union ! For the self-organization of the workers from their workplace to the territory ! For the anti-capitalist perspective of international communism ! For the revolutionary party ! Partito Comunista Internazionalista – Battaglia Comunista |
Note:
1. The Cassa Integrazione is a mecanism of unemployment insurance which indemnifies the technical unemployment. It means the workers of a company, when this one "has no more work to give them", are paid by the Cassa during a certain time without being laid-off.
Communist Bulletin Nº 29 - Internal Fraction of ICC