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Italy

Cowardly intimidation of the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB)

 

 

On 6 April 2022, shortly before 11 a.m., a unit of carabinieri stormed the national headquarters of the USB in Rome and carried out a search without a judicial warrant, invoking Article 4 of Law 152 from 1975. Anonymous telephone calls had alerted the presence of weapons at the Rome headquarters.

The organisation published photographs and video footage of the operation and provided comments on its union website. The defiance and anger of the leaders present, who considered it insufficient and expedient to give seriousness to mere, albeit repeated, anonymous phone calls, did not help. They were forced to give consent to the carabinieri to inspect the men's room, where they "found" a gun wrapped in cellophane in the flush tank. To everyone present's disbelief and amazement, the Carabinieri obligingly announced that the persons responsible for the call would be identified and charged.

The incident had an immediate national resonance and caused great concern and worry among the grassroots trade union movement. Unione Sindacale di Base was formed in 2010 by the merger of RDB (Rappresentanze Sindacali di Base) and SdL (Sindacato dei Lavoratori), two historic trade unions that had been active in Italy for decades. The confederation also includes tenants' associations, pensioners, the unemployed and students. The USB is a member of the World Federation of Labour (WFTU), which is believed to have millions of members.

This episode is extremely serious and is taking place in an atmosphere where the escalation of social conflict will push the bourgeoisie towards ever more repressive and preventive methods as social welfare gradually disappears.

Today's measure has hit the USB, an organisation which has grown a lot in recent times in various sectors and which has been characterised by various initiatives aimed at blocking arms shipments from Pisa airport and the port of Genoa.

This is clear intimidation, moreover, in the context of the elections for the RSU (rappresentanza sindacale unitaria; a collective body representing workers regardless of their membership in a trade union, translator's note) in the public sector, directed, however, against all proletarians, who, given the deep-rooted collaborationism of the big class-collaborationist unions, will inevitably be pushed to organise themselves more and more in bodies independent of the collaborationist trade unionism. Moreover, the possibility that such a development could become an incentive and encouragement to the interventions of the political vanguards is of great concern to the bourgeoisie and its trade union and political minions

Contact between communists and proletarian vanguards will herald the resumption of the class struggle. It is the only way to fight against oppression and precarious work and an insecure life, a way that will inexorably lead the proletariat to the decisive political confrontation.

 

Against repression, solidarity with the USB

For the resumption of the independent class struggle, for unity in the struggle, against any initiative promoting inter-class "national unity"!

 

 

International Communist Party

April, 7th 2022

www.pcint.org

 

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