Differentiated autonomy, an open letter to Maurizio Landini

There are moments in the history of a country when the fate of its people is decided for decades to come.

This is Italy’s moment: the differentiated autonomy marks a historical czar, a final rift in our country with the danger of igniting a struggle between the workers of the south against the workers of the north. With many state powers passing to the provinces, small regional states will be reborn, as in centuries of our enslavement, and the national government will still be in control of the forces of order, which will only suppress the discontent generated by this counter-reform.

While huge struggles are going on in France, Great Britain, Germany and Spain, the Italian Confederation is practically immobile. In particular, the CGIL, the largest and most brilliant Italian workers’ organization, which at this stage cannot limit itself to Landini’s pronouncements and planning of some possible strikes on a regional scale.

It is not simply a question of defending the right to basic services – education, health and social services – for the population of the South, it is a question of preventing the unity of Italy and thus preventing the definitive disintegration of the workers. It seems clear that, with differentiated autonomy, national contracts would no longer have meaning, because the gap in labor relations, wages and salaries would be such that each region would in fact have its own bargaining.

The division process will be progressive and almost invisible. In the richest regions, wages and salaries would be linked to inflation, while in the south the regions would not have the resources to do so, nor to employ another labor force. South-North emigration will resume in full force, and unless a new Gothic line is established, it will lead to a clash of the working poor.

What is waiting for CGIL to fill seriously? What other threat should present itself against the interests of workers and the state? We ask Maurizio Landini to tell us what he intends to do as secretary of Italy’s most important trade union.

* * * Signatories:
Tonino Berna, Piero Bevilacqua, Enzo Scandora, Domenico De Massi, Laura Marchetti, Luigi Feragoli, Massimo Filoni, Rossano Bazzali, Luigi de Magistris, Pino Ippolito Armeno, Battista Sanginnetto, Piero Capri, Alberza Bertuzzi, Franco Bertuzzi, Giuseppe Aragono, Alfonso Gianni , Giuseppe Saponaro, Franco Santopolo, Franco Toscani, Lusigna Speciale, Maria Pia Germani, Mario Fiorentini, Roberto Bodini Gattai, Loris Caruso, Antonio Zuccaro, Alessandra De Rossi, Pier Giorgio Ardini, Amiliante Cunha, Ciro Franco Trine, Alfio Mastropaolo, Maria Adele Tite, Gaia Ballotino, Silvana Iannelli, Gaetano Lamanna, Roberto Sugnamillo, Marta Petrosovic, Andrea Battinelli, Amalia Colesani, Domenico Rizzotti, Angelo Broccolo.