Labor Divided: Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy 9781501745843

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LABOR DIVIDED

LABOR DIVIDED Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy

MIRIAM GOLDEN

Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 1988 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 1988 by Cornell University Press. International Standard Book Number o-8014-2200-0 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 88-47726 Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears on the last page of the book. The paper in this book is acidjree and meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Contents

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3 4 5 6 7 8

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Preface Abbreviations Policy, Purpose, and the Internal Politics of Labor Movements Policy Orientations in the Italian Labor Movement The Emergence of Moderation: The Union Confederations and the Communist Party The Metalworkers: A Radical Industrial Union Opposes Austerity Policy on the Periphery: Provincial Responses to Austerity Cherished Hypotheses: Provincial Unions in Their Environments The Historical and Organizational Dynamics of Provincial Unionism Conclusions: Accounting for Union Policy Orientations Appendix A: The Field Research Appendix B: Data Sources and Methodology Index

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25 59 89 125 160 197 243 259 262 267

Preface

Why do the policy orientations of labor movements in contemporary capitalism differ? Why do some trade unions and working-class political parties embrace moderation whereas others exhibit radicalism? These questions acquired new political salience in the years after the first oil shock of 1973, as policies of wage moderation became the goal of governments across the advanced capitalist world. Incomes policies could not be enacted, however, without the consent of organized labor, which was too powerful to be excluded from policy considerations. But whether union confederations would accede to policies of wage moderation was at first an open question. Although the market did its work everywhere by the 1980s, forcing wages down in most advanced capitalist countries, the reactions of organized labor were critical in deciding whether such adjustments would be, in a political sense, orderly or not. Unions could resist policies of wage moderation or accede to them. This book tries to account for the choice-radicalism or moderation-that would characterize labor's responses to the economic and political pressures of the 1970s and 1980s. I examine a union movement that offered visibly divided responses to these pressures, one where radicals and moderates repeatedly battled each other in a struggle to determine national union policy. Although the moderates won, their victory came with a price: Italian wage policies incorporated compromises from the outset in the form of concessions made by moderates to their radical opponents. In examining the policy orientations of different groups in the Italian labor movement, I start with what union officials said they were trying to do and with how they explained their own intentions, beliefs, and ideological leanings. I ground their strategic preferences in the material opportunities afforded by organizational structures, and I show how different vii

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Preface

patterns of organizational reproduction characterized different parts of the union movement. By focusing on what I call labor's divergent logics of organizational behavior, I offer an account of union policies and politics that unites attention to the goals officials held, the historical circumstances that initially established those goals in the pattern-setting commitments of the Italian "hot autumn" of 1969, and the material conditions that perpetuated them into the 198os. Using a dozen interlocked case studies at both the national and the local level, I demonstrate that labor organizations responded to the new political and economic pressures of the late 1970s and early 1980s according to their established repertoires of action, that their responses were routinized and predictable, and thus that (except in unusual circumstances) strategies and structures persist over time. Among political scientists, empathy is a largely unspoken research technique, but it is critical to the kind of fieldwork required by the problem at hand. Those from the heartland of Italian radicalism and resistance to income policies permitted me the luxury of empathy, and it gives me great pleasure to thank the officials and activists associated with the metalworking unions in Turin. Like all the union and Communist party officials who made my research possible, the specific individuals must remain anonymous. These are, however, among the least anonymous, most distinctive, and most courageous people I have had the privilege to know. As specialists in the division of labor they will, I trust, forgive me for having done my job even when it led to conclusions they will not agree with. In my research I called on many others in the Italian labor movement, and their helpfulness was uniformly impressive. I thank the national offices of the Italian metalworking unions, as well as their offices in Cuneo, Modena, Pordenone, and Milan; the national labor confederations and their offices in the same four provinces as well as in Turin; and the offices of the Italian Communist party in Rome, Cuneo, Modena, Pordenone, and Turin. Although empathy is crucial to understanding, it is not sufficient. For having instructed me initially in the requisite critical distance, I thank Sidney Tarrow for his imagination, generosity, and expertise. Peter Katzenstein's ability to untangle complicated intellectual problems is already well-known but should not for that reason go unrecorded. Gianfranco Pasquino's help was a stroke of good luck, and I was also fortunate to have Isaac Kramnick's contributions. Finally, Steven Jackson made the statistical work fun through his skill and good humor. A number of other people very generously read all or part of my manuscript. I thank David Cameron, Anthony Daley, Stephen Hellman, Mar-

Preface

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garet Keck, Peter Lange, J. Donald Moon, George Ross, Ian Shapiro, Stephen Skowronek, Rogers Smith, and George Tsebelis. They have been patient, encouraging, and skillful critics. Various Italian institutions made unpublished data available. I thank the Industrial Relations Office of Fiat, S.p.A.; the president of the Federmeccanica, Felice Mortillaro; the national offices of the Istituto Centrale di Statistica; and the statistical offices of the Italian Communist party. The COIL's library and archives in Rome opened its doors to me, as did the Centro Studi CISL in Florence and the Istituto Gramsci Piemontese. In Turin I was fortunate to enjoy the hospitality of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, whose director, Mario Einaudi, has been a special friend to foreign researchers. When I was in Rome, Gino Giugni offered me a desk in his already crowded offices. For help with unionization data, I thank Guido Romagnoli. For teaching me to work with !STAT's data, I am grateful to Fabrizio Carmignani for his generosity. Finally, this research allowed me to talk to a large number of Italian scholars in the social sciences. Their encouragement and hospitality make those of us from abroad who study Italy extremely fortunate. Financial support for the research reported here was provided by the Social Science Research Council in conjunction with the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Commission, the Danforth Foundation, Sigma Xi (the Scientific Research Society), the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Cornell University, the University of New Mexico, and Wesleyan University. None of these institutions is responsible for the final product. Finally, it gives me deep pleasure to thank the person who taught me that it is impossible to sever empathy from criticial distance. I remain unsure if this is what he intended. Aris Accomero's continuing lack of success in repudiating his own political history, coupled with his scholarly expertise and generosity, has inspired and guided a generation of both American and Italian scholars. I am honored to be among them. I have been extremely fortunate to work with John Ackerman of Cornell University Press. He has been the editor authors dream of but rarely find. MIRIAM GOLDEN

New Haven, Connecticut

Abbreviations

AI API ASAP

AUSI CCNL CD CdA CdF

CeSPE COIL CGU CI CIG CISL CNA Coldiretti Confindustria

cvs

DC DP ENI Federbraccianti Federmeccanica FGCI FIM-CISL FIOM-CGIL

xi

Associazione lndustriale Associazione Piccole lndustrie Associazione Sindacale per Ie Aziende Petrochimiche e Collegate a Partecipazione Statale Agenzia Unitaria Sindacale contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro Comitato Direttivo consiglio di azienda consiglio di fabbrica Centro Studi di Politica Economica Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro Consiglio Generale Unitario commissione interna cassa integrazione guadagni Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori Confederazione Nazionale Artigianato Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti Confederazione Generale deii'Industria ltaliana Cotonifici Valle di Susa Democrazia Cristiana Democrazia Proletaria Ente Nazionale ldrocarburi Federazione Nazionale Braccianti, Salariati, Tecnici Federazione delle lndustrie Meccaniche Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana Federazione ltaliana Metallurgici Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici

xii

Abbreviations

FLM FULTA

INAIL !STAT Intersind IS VET IU OECD PCI PSI PSIUP RSA SIDA SNS SSA

sse

UIL UILM-UIL

Federazione Lavoratori Metalmeccanici Federazione Unitaria Lavoratori Tessili Abbigliamento Istituto Nazionale Assicurazione Italiano del Lavoro Istituto Centrale di Statistica Associazione Sindacale Intersind Istituto per gli Studi dello Sviluppo ed il Progresso Tecnico inquadramento unico Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Partito Comunista Italiano Partito Socialista Italiano Partito Socialista Italiano di Unita Proletario rappresentante sindacale aziendale Sindacato Italiano dell' Automobile Sindacato Nazionale Scuola sezione sindacale aziendale senza scelta confederale Unione Italiana del Lavoro Unione Italiana dei Lavoratori-Metallurgici

LABOR DIVIDED

I Policy, Purpose, and the Internal Politics of Labor Movements

It is commonplace to observe that trade unions are organizations and that organizations have interests. But how does interest come to be defined? Interests are not given but made; they are the ways organizational officials come to define their collective purposes in relation to the world they perceive around them. How do the people who staff complex organizations such as trade unions decide that specific policy positions, ideological orientations, and strategic trajectories correspond to and will further their interests? How do union officials know what they ought to do? Labor organizations have displayed substantial differences in their policy orientations across the advanced capitalist countries in the decades since World War II. Some trade unions have appeared largely reconciled to the capitalist order, integrated into the democratic polity, pragmatic in their bargaining stance, and typically moderate. The behavior of organized labor elsewhere has been more unpredictable, often considerably more militant, and occasionally even taken on the appearance of radical anticapitalism. Different countries have seen different mixtures of strategies and policies at different times. Moderation and militancy, quiescence and contestation, radicalism and reformism-all have characterized organized labor in one or another of the advanced capitalist countries since 1945, and in a few countries labor has passed through periods exemplifying each. In short, there has been considerable variation in how trade unions have determined their organizational interests and policies under contemporary capitalism. What accounts for such variations? Why do unions differ in their policy orientations? To investigate such questions, this book presents materials drawn from an intensive examination of the Italian labor movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For reasons explained below, I focus on the varying I

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Labor Divided

policy orientations exhibited by the three Italian union confederations and the joint metalworkers' federation both nationally and in four northern localities. I also pay particular attention to the Italian Communist party, at both the national and the local levels, and examine its role in Italian labor politics. I investigate factional conflicts within the labor movement over issues of wage control and incomes policies, issues that constituted the focus of national policy debate during these years. Using multiple case studies of divergent policy orientations-studies framed by national context and policy decision-! offer a theoretically grounded account of union policy orientations in general and Italian labor politics in particular.

The Problem: Explaining Union Policy Orientations Empirical studies have advanced a plethora of variables to account for the observable differences in the policy orientations of organized labor under contemporary capitalism. One convenient grouping distinguishes political, sociological, economic-industrial, and organizational explanations. Various political explanations of union policy orientations exist. It is commonly argued that the partisan affiliations union officials bring with them into their organizations are important determinants of their policy orientations: that Communist unionists tend to differ systematically from their social democratic counterparts, for instance, and that union officials drawn from socialist subcultures differ from those with Catholic backgrounds. Similarly, regular contact or shared partisanship with state officials is said to render union functionaries politically more docile and more likely to cooperate in government policy-making endeavors. Finally, leftwing governments are frequently assumed to induce policy and wage moderation on the part of organized labor whereas centrist, conservative, and labor-exclusionary governments are said to engender labor opposition. At the extreme, a repressive and antilabor state is thought to induce radical trade unionism.' 1. Leo Panitch, "The Development of Corporatism in Liberal Democracies," Comparative Political Studies 10 (April 1977), 61-90; Robert Michels, Political Parties: A so: ciological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1962); David Cameron, "Social Democracy, Corporatism, Labour Quiescence, and the Representation of Economic Interest in Advanced Capitalist Society," in Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism: Studies in the Political Economy of Western European Nations, ed. John H. Goldthorpe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Walter Korpi and Michael Shalev, "Strikes, Power and Politics in the Western Nations, 19oo-1976," in Political Power and Social Theory: A Research Annual, ed. Maurice Zeitlin, I

Internal Politics of Labor Movements

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Sociological variables customarily deemed important in determining the policy positions of union officials include class background-officials drawn from middle class backgrounds are typically assumed to be more moderate, less ideological, and more pragmatic than their genuinely working class counterparts-educational attainments, and generational cohort, with the young presumably more likely to embrace intransigence than their older colleagues. Similarly, the sociology of the work force is often considered an important external determinant of union policy: generational cohort, skill level, work experience, and occupational, class, and status identity have all been viewed as possible explanations of rank-and-file militancy and subsequent union response. The unskilled, the semiskilled, and their official representatives have frequently been seen, for instance, as carriers of values that are more democratic, egalitarian, and participatory than the skilled and their union representatives (historically construed as one or another version of an "aristocracy of labor," albeit a wellorganized and often militant one). At the same time, however, the contemporary semiskilled production worker has also come to be viewed as both privatized and instrumental in his sociopolitical orientations and increasingly likely to support predominantly service- rather than class-oriented trade unionism. Finally, the sociology of labor's counterpart has often been seen as an important determinant of union policy orientations. Repressive and authoritarian management is said to breed militant and radical unions, for instance. 2 Economic and industrial variables, too, have been used to explain differences in the policy orientations of labor organizations. Well-paid work-

(Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1980); Seymour Martin Lipset, "Radicalism or Reformism: The Sources of Working-Class Politics," American Political Science Review 77 (March 1983), 1-18; Edward Shorter and Charles Tilly, Strikes in France, 183o-1968 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Douglas A. Hibbs, Jr., "On the Political Economy of Long-Run Trends in Strike Activity," British Journal of Political Science 8 (April 1978), 153-75, and idem, "Industrial Conflict in Advanced Industrial Societies," American Political Science Review 70 (December 1976), 1033-58. 2. Michels, Political Parties; Colin Crouch and Alessandro Pizzomo, eds., TheResurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe since 1968, 2 vols. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978); Dick Geary, European Labor Protest, 1848-1939 (New York: St. Martin's, 1981); Eric J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964); John H. Goldthorpe, "The Current Inflation: Towards a Sociological Account," in The Political Economy of Inflation, ed. Fred Hirsch and John H. Goldthorpe (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1978); John H. Goldthorpe eta!., The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

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Labor Divided

ers and their representatives have been assumed to be more attached to pure wage militancy and more likely to define their self-interest in relatively narrow, instrumental terms, whereas poorly paid workers have often been viewed as more egalitarian and solidaristic. Similar differences have been ascribed to craft versus industrial unions. The external economy has also been viewed as important in determining union policy, though with contradictory results: economic downturn is said to breed either increased discontent or mass quiescence, boom conditions are almost uniformly thought to engender greater industrial militancy. Plant size, industrial concentration, and productive technologies have also been considered important determinants of workers' attitudes and hence union policy, though also with contradictory results. 3 Organizational variables, finally have been used with considerable effect to explain union policy differences. Most frequently considered have been the extent of union centralization and concentration. National officials are customarily assumed to be more moderate but also less particularistic and parochial than their tendentially more militant local or shopfloor colleagues. Organizational centralization is thus deemed important in ensuring the triumph of moderate, pragmatic policy orientations. Similarly, large, encompassing organizations are often seen as less particularistic, more moderate, and more effective than their smaller and more fragmented counterparts, making the degree of internal organizational concentration important in determining the tenor of policy likely to prevail nationally. At least by implication, both arguments ascribe militancy and radicalism to workers and moderation (if not outright conservatism) to full-time officials; they suggest that union policy orientations reflect the degree of organizational exposure and porousness to the influence exercised by the rank and file. Organizational radicalism is thereby thought to characterize subnational officials and shopfloor union representatives in their power struggles with national elites. 4 We are thus confronted with an embarrassment of explanatory riches, a dazzling array of competing and often contradictory explanations for union policy, all of them analytically plausible and each apparently cor3· Hibbs, "Industrial Conflict in Advanced Industrial Societies"; Peter Lange, "Unions, Workers, and Wage Regulation: The Rational Bases of Consent," in Goldthorpe, Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism; Crouch and Pizzorno, Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe; Robert Blauner, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and His Industry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). 4· Michels, Political Parties; Claus Offe and Helmut Wiesenthal, "Two Logics of Collective Action: Theoretical Notes on Social Class and Organizational Form," in Zeitlin, Political Power and Social Theory; Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations:

Internal Politics of Labor Movements

5

roborated in one or another empirical study. This book offers two different responses to this dilemma. First, I designed my research to test some of the most important of these hypotheses against one another. Although the empirical materials I present are all drawn from a single national setting during a relatively short period of time, they involve three central confederations, one national industrial union, the same four organizations in four localities, and two separate policy decisions. These