rivista anarchica
anno 41 n. 363
giugno 2011


syndicalism

Chronicle of an assembly
by Cosimo Scarinzi

The national secretary of the Research University School Cub participating in a meeting at the Comprehensive Institute of Candiolo (Torino). Surreal and instructive.

I never heard that flatulence determine philosophical situations.
Letters to Erwin Rohde, Lugano, 29 March 1871

Without excessive confidence allow me to observe that the fact that a thing has never been established does not make it by itself without foundation and, therefore, I believe that all human experience is possible to draw general lessons.
I will try, therefore, to extend the guide to what has happened to me some time ago during a short trip to Candiolo and the extent of my ability, to draw some considerations.

Candiolo, oh dear!

Dull, heavy fog
lanterns of yellow variegated
Candiolo sadly hidden.
Nothing good that fails

Three stops and a couple of minutes separate the Lingotto station in Turin from the one of Candiolo.
A door between different dimensions or perhaps, more simply, the crossing of an invisible frontier that leads to a lost land between Turin and Pinerolo, an underworld, or, as some would say, deep Italy, the belly of our country.
I'm leaving at dawn, I have an eight-quarter meeting at Institute Comprehensive (which I know very little understanding and even be very close) of Candiolo but the last train arrives at 7.36 and I, for fear of not arrive in time to the station of Lingotto, I managed to take the previous one.
On the train I find my colleague and fellow cob member going to work, in fact, in Pinerolo and greets me cordially, the last link to my usual world.
And am thrilled to get down at Candiolo, the dock is submerged in fog and I do not see the station. Yet I seem to remember, I move along the dock, sharp eyesight and I find that it actually exists.
Finally my Automedon volunteer, the solid of the School Cub JC Candiolo peaks me up, gives me a coffee and I brings me in his school where there is already Pier Geppo Gentile, a friendly unionist of the FLC CGIL.
As soon as I get to it being blocked by a colleague who, with controversy allure, denies me that it seems that the government blocks for two years seniority while some unions had assured him otherwise.
If they judge a kulturvolker'd I would say it's a bastard, but because I think that is a naturvolker one man in the zoological sense, however, that during the assembly, will prove of some animal cunning, I take a liking to, and not just do not tell him who holds the horns, but rather I inform him cordially that he did not understand a shit.
In the face of my good nature our solid equivocates, and gets the idea that I know the beast in question. I reassure him, I just developed over the years-fitted defensive techniques against such people..

Appreciation of the surreal

Start the meeting, I display, in order, some amenities here:

1. Mirafiori and trade agreement
2. cut in staff
3. wage cut
4. discipline of school staff
5. meritocracy

all in order to argue that the game is played affects us all and that is good and right to strike.
The audience seems to be listening with interest, some nodding, I seem to have been able to communicate.
The same Pier Geppo resumes my speech, says fever and horns of Fiat, Confindustria and the government and does not insist too much on the differences between us and FLC CGIL. I will know then that the FLC CGIL has eight members - as well, but I already knew, to a delegation of solid - in the institution and not a little thing that ever strike 'embarrasses him.

All right then? Absolutely not!

Part of a barrage of questions that are, in hindsight, on one question: why the strike did not indict all together, CGIL - CISL and UIL - SNALS - Gilda - CUB - Cobas - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - The Horde 's gold, the Seventh Cavalry? Then strike to ensure that 200% or maybe even 300%!

Any attempt to point out that:

1. It is a bit 'hard to imagine that unions, as in this case, CISL and UIL, which signed an agreement would strike against this same agreement
2. There are different positions and unions, who might have some reason to exist
3. One thing is for unions and other workers and that before asking what will the unions do would be appropriate to ask what you intend to do.

Wrecked in front of the demand for a strong and united trade union leadership, some even say "totalitarian" people's education.

In truth one of only two colleagues who are not covered and aligned to the dominant style notes that 30 October 2008, when the strike of the school was opened and / or supported by any and all trade unions and syndicated, JV Candiolo went on strike two (2) teachers on 135 (yes, one hundred thirty-five!), and obviously were him and our heroic rsu.

This vulgar, it must be said, goes unnoticed, the uproar colleagues more than ever overwhelming the poor Pier Geppo starting to get angry but I am now at the stage of appreciation of the surreal.

To conclude, I receive compliments from a colleague, one of the most vocal proponents of the union together, I'll know not only failed to strike but never carry a unique form of class struggle. He and his brother, his wife and that of his brother all in service there, in fact, go to Sicily, their homeland, regularly one week before the Christmas holiday and "sick" just come to the village, disease that is repeated, of course for all four at the end of holidays again for a week.
I recognize that it is legitimate to question whether such a hero of our time may have some interest in industrial action or whether it is already over, like a big rat in a cellar full of cheeses, pastries, meats.

For my part, I say what? Console ourselves thinking that the best companies around you temper your onstage Theater outskirts hardest. Those who survive to a meeting of trade union JV Candiolo can successfully hold a meeting anywhere.

It is also true that in the latter part of the morning, I held a meeting on the same subject in the LS for Turin where teachers and ATA have heard me with the affectionate sense of who knew where I was going to learn and forgive me.
It must be said that at the time there is a core part leftist Cubist and partly CGL that when the union calls answered no ifs, ands or buts.
They seem, to some extent, to appreciate - it happens especially in high schools - in particular the political strike, the Cubists and CGL itself in the eternal hope of making the same CGIL more lively. As for CGL, we can say that make the right choice for the wrong reasons but what counts is that they make the right choice.

Some, provisional conclusions.

A pessimist might infer from what I have written a conclusion that enjoys broad support and that is that it is impossible to communicate if there aren't some shared assumptions.
An optimist might suggest that during the ill-fated assembly at Candiolo some seed has also been placed in the ground and that will bear fruit when we least expect it.

I'd avoid both readings that seem forced. Probably JV Candiolo you give two specific conditions in a chemically pure or almost:

  • the more you take a typical assumption of bounded rationality: the strike involves a financial sacrifice, the personal participation in the strike does not affect its overall success and, therefore, if you avoid counting in case of success, to enjoy it anyway fruits and, in the event of bankruptcy, not pay the price. That's all. It goes without saying that the fact that not only Candiolo see so many men and women involves the effect that the strikes fail, and that the government sticks but this does not seem convincing argument for the scabs usual;
  • a relatively small but culturally hegemonic discourse that has developed a somewhat ennobled the strike and that is not the demand, apparently reasonable, a united front as a precondition for accession to a union strike. What, from this point of view makes the special IC Candiolo this speech is not actually very common, but the virulence with which it is communicated and aggressiveness with which you reply to any topic other than the almost non-conforming total lack of co-workers and colleagues who express a different approach.

the practical consequence that can be drawn is that it is not worth wasting time in that place, but despite everything, I would not consider the experience devoid of any and of all utilities.

Cosimo Scarinzi

translation Enrico Massetti: enricomassetti@msn.com