Italy's rank and file assembles
“The urgent need in this country is for a government of workers to decide its direction.” So said Dante De Angeli, an Italian train driver, one among 500 delegates representing workplace and factory committees at an assembly in Rome on 3 June. They met against a background of the economic crisis and the savage austerity programme of Mario Monti. The 20-year decline in wages and living standards is plummeting yet further. The words of another delegate summed up succinctly the purpose of the assembly: ”The unity of the trade union movement so far [i.e. the “Social Contract” of the Confed unions...