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Italian politics and elections - news and discussion

Looking increasingly likely that both M5S and Lega will back Draghi
“We are ready to overcome everything in the interest of the country,” Crimi said of the 5-Star Movement, which secured the most votes in the last parliamentary election in 2018 and a key element of both Conte governments, the first with the rightwing League and the second with the leftwing Democratic party.

Salvini’s move to support Draghi puts him at odds with the far-right Brothers of Italy party and its leader, Giorgia Meloni. She said on Friday that she would remain in opposition. Salvini cited the weight of the EU recovery funds needed to relaunch the Italian economy after a national lockdown and subsequent public health restrictions.

“I would rather be in the room where it is decided if the money is used well or not, instead of being on the outside,” he said.
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So FdI are only major group opposing.
 
Latest piece on the Italian situation from Jacobin
The broad political support for his administration — with fifteen “political” ministers drawn variously from the Five Star Movement, the center-left, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and Matteo Salvini’s hard-right Lega, along with eight unelected technocrats — owes much to the European Recovery Fund money he will have at hand. Yet both Draghi’s record, and his cabinet’s reliance on various Berlusconi-era ghouls and bank administrators, are good reason to question the media boosterism about Italy’s “savior” and his government “of the best.”
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With all major parties involved in this government its hard to see another round of party musical chairs. Can M5S really remain a viable party (or perhaps I should get significant support from voters) now that it is not only been in government with the DP but also FI and an unelected technocrat? Flavour is probably right that the Lega will weather the resulting storm better than others but the FdI must also be looking forward to make gains.
Democratic Party leader Nicola Zingaretti initially insisted that he would never enter a government with Lega ministers. But he soon dropped this posture in deference to Draghi, and even the more left-wing coalition Liberi e Uguali (LeU) took a similar route. Within this latter grouping, a small party called Sinistra Italiana held an internal vote in which 87 percent rejected support for Draghi’s administration. But, telling of the weakness of anti-neoliberal forces, the debate centered on a refusal to ally with the Lega, rather than a rejection of the former European bank chief’s own project; indeed, even the most left-wing forces in the Italian parliament are more like Greens in similar countries, than a communist or radical left.

Supporters of the Five Star Movement, still the largest force in parliament, also voted by 60 percent to back the administration, prompting dissident leader Alessandro di Battista to quit this once–”anti-establishment” party. Five Star personalities like Beppe Grillo and foreign minister Luigi di Maio — once hostile to all coalitions between parties — again showed themselves “ready for anything, capable of very little,” backing the Draghi administration without in imposing political priorities upon it.
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The only major party that refused to join Draghi’s government, Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia, is the force already keenest to go to the polls. It currently stands at around 16 percent support (four times its March 2018 score), mounting a rapid rise reminiscent of previous “anti-establishment outsiders” like Five Star and the Lega. Bidding to detoxify its Mussolinian roots, Fratelli d’Italia is in some ways a more “normal” conservative party than even the Lega, combining elements of Spain’s Partido Popular and welfare-chauvinist parties in central-eastern Europe. Yet it is extremely troubling that such a force should be the only opposition, with the Left both absent and unable to pose any kind of political alternative to Draghi.
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Looking increasingly likely too that M5S will split over this, into "No Draghi" and "Yes Draghi" camps. At first the No Draghi camp might seem weaker and of course they'll be out of government but if they can reform and hold their ground, then wait for the inevitable fuck ups of the Draghi government, they could be well-positioned to benefit from that in the future, being the "moral" ones, while the "Yes Draghi" M5S will probably be crushed at the next elections, whenever they are.
 
Italy’s Government Is Outsourcing Its Economic Strategy To Private Management Consultants McKinsey
03.06.2021
Upon its formation last month, Mario Draghi’s new government was heralded by almost all Italian and international media as a rescue operation. Where the former European Central Bank (ECB) chief Draghi had “saved the euro” in the 2010s, most outlets gushed over “Super Mario” and his plan to “save Italy” by splashing a mooted €209 billion in European recovery fund cash while “reforming” its lackluster economy.

The kind of “reforms” this meant went unmentioned — and after all, this government bears no relation to voter decisions, or the coalitions that ran in the last general election. But for the fourth time since the 1990s, a president called on a technocrat from the world of finance and banking to form a cabinet, halfway through a parliament. Eight of Draghi’s twenty-three ministers are unelected technocrats, in a so-called government of experts.
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If these figures are not party-political, they have similar backgrounds and instincts. Economy minister Daniele Franco is a former Bank of Italy official who drafted the famous 2011 ECB letter instructing the government to implement privatizations and cut back collective bargaining. Former Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao — today innovation and digital transition minister — is a former partner at private consultants McKinsey & Company.

Now, it has been revealed that McKinsey is going to be tasked with writing Italy’s economic plan for the coming period, to be submitted for review by the European Commission at the end of next month. Notorious for its role in the Enron scandal as well as the 2008 financial crisis — as it promoted the boundless securitization of mortgage assets — and the botched vaccine rollout in France, the firm is now being called on to shape the Draghi government’s “reform” agenda.
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Cheers, running this through google translate gives:
[ITALY] More repression. Piacenza tip of the iceberg: the provincial coordinator of Bologna for the Mirror bombing sentenced to 9 months

March 24, 2021 0

simone-repressione-bologna-1440x1000.jpg


MORE REPRESSION

Piacenza is just the tip of the iceberg: the provincial coordinator SI Cobas of Bologna sentenced to nine months.

Meanwhile the repressive wave against SI Cobas continues to develop from Piacenza to Prato, a little while ago we received news that the Court of Ferrara issued a sentence of 9 months of imprisonment against the provincial coordinator of Bologna in the first instance, Simone Carpeggiani, due to a picket held in 2014 at the Mirror Levigature in Sant'Agostino.

For those unfamiliar with that dispute, we remind you that between 2014 and 2015 SI Cobas waged a long battle to obtain compliance with the CNNL and the recognition of huge pay differences, following which the bosses fired 14 union members through the classic expedient of the contract change.

We also remember that the fight against the Mirror exposed collateralism and complicity between the bosses, the political-institutional class and the repressive apparatuses like few others: the company in fact made use of the support of the Northern League of Salvini and sectors of fascist and racist laborers who took to the field against SI Cobas calling for the repatriation of immigrant workers and creating an ad hoc climate of tension that paved the way for the charges and the batons of the Police Headquarters against the workers who guarded the gates.

The Ferrara sentence fits into a general context of frontal attack on SI Cobas on a national scale, functional to pave the way for a new season of social butchery against the proletarians, and it cannot be excluded that the sentence against Simone is also the product of that climate of national unity sealed by the Draghi government and the honeymoon between the latter and the Northern League.

An attack that must be strongly rejected by appealing, here and now, to the mobilization and direct involvement of the workers.

SI National Cobas
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I also found this - again, was in Italian, but google translate gives:
9-month sentence to Carpeggiani of SI Cobas: the trail of judicial attacks on workers' struggles continues
9-month sentence to Carpeggiani of SI Cobas: the trail of judicial attacks on workers' struggles continues


A few hours ago, news of the 9-month sentence for a picket in Ferrara imposed on the coordinator of Si Cobas Bologna Simone Carpeggiani.

The news arrived today of the 9-month sentence in first instance, inflicted on the coordinator of Si Cobas Bologna, Simone Carpeggiani, following a picket held in 2014 at the Mirror Levigature, in Sant'Agostino, under Ferrara. As the union communiqué recalls , the episode was part of a struggle that lasted several months between 2014 and 2015 for the application of the CCNL in the company and wage improvements.

carpeggiani.jpg

Simone Carpeggiani

The company responded, as has happened on other occasions in similar disputes where workers returned to using combative, hard-nosed methods, firing 14 union members. The mobilization had expanded to launch a city parade in Ferrara in March 2015, also in rejection of the attacks that Salvini's League launched, relying on the fact that several workers involved were immigrants.

It becomes increasingly clear how the rise of the Draghi government, and the return to the government of the League itself, has meant a further "green light" to police and judicial repression, compared to the Conte government which had also promoted forms of militarization of the country with the its quarantine management policy. There are several sectors of labor and social conflict that are under attack: the SI Cobas itself for various episodes of struggle, from the Texprint of Prato to the struggles in Emilia (among which the TNT of Piacenza stands out), to those of dockers and the unemployed. in Naples.

The spirit of Salvini's security decrees is stronger than ever, and the only way to stop it is that of the unity of the struggles between the exploited and the oppressed, and of active solidarity with individual comrades and sectors that are most affected.

Full solidarity with Simone!

Condemnations cannot stop the struggle of the working class!



Giacomo Turci​
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Can anyone explain what the actual criminal offence here was? Did he get in a fight with someone who attacked the picket, or was the picket itself illegal for some reason, or what? The SI Cobas headline says "bombing" but there's no mention of any bomb anywhere else, so I'm guessing that's a mis-translation?
 
hitmouse said:
The SI Cobas headline says "bombing" but there's no mention of any bomb anywhere else, so I'm guessing that's a mis-translation?
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It looks like the word for strike has been misspelt in the headline (siopero instead of sciopero) and then google translate has decided this must mean bombing. I don't actually know Italian though so I'm not guaranteeing the explanation.
 
That sounds plausible. Very unfortunate mistake to make if that is the case though, you really don't want to be going around accidentally describing someone as being the coordinator for a bombing.
 
She says it's not clear. Something to do with a picket but it doesn't say what. And yeah, siopero does seem to be a mispelling of sciopero. So no bombing! By coincidence, Piacenza way is where all Signora Forward's family is.
 
I think this is quite funny, could also go in the populism thread (see also: the vain and quite frankly laughable attempts by the liberal media to wish their problems away)

Translation of the very loaded question is basically : "you're convinced that Draghi will be able to govern and achieve important results..."
A) despite the political parties (60%)
B) thanks to the political parties (12%)
C) don't know (27%)

The first line of the article then reveals that actually only 41.3% of people are convinced Draghi will obtain important results (that is as vague in Italian as it is in English, means nothing) but its this follow up question they choose for their graphic, to try and stick two fingers up to those meddling parties getting in the way of unelected technocrat Draghi and his mysterious important results.

This is from "radical center" newspaper La Stampa of Turín
 

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Latest poll:

Lega 21,5 (-0,3)
PD 19,1 (-0,3)
FDI 18,7 (+0,3)
M5S 17,2 (+0,8)
Forza Italia 7,5 (-0,1)
Azione 3,1 (-0,1)
Italia Viva 2,5 (+0,1)
Sinistra Italiana 2,2 (-0,2)
Verdi 1,6 (-0,1)
Art.1-MDP 1,6 (+0,2)
+Europa 1,4

So the main right bloc (Lega, Forza, FdI) has a combined % of 47.7 FdI on the verge of overtaking PD. M5S continue to crumble.
 
50 thugs attack a SI Cobas Fedex picket (warning: graphic photo in link):
AT FEDEX – ZAMPIERI DI TAVAZZANO (LODI): ARMED AGGRESSION TO THE SI COBAS WORKERS. A WORKER IS END OF LIFE WHILE THE POLICE IS WATCHING !!! FEDEX AND ZAMPIERI MAFIOSI MURDERERS!

A little while ago, around 1.00 am, at the FedEx-Zampieri di Tavazzano, the FedEx SI Cobas workers’ “garrison” from Piacenza was attacked with sticks, fragments of pallets, stones and bottles by about fifty bodyguards hired by the bosses. The squadron led by Zampieri’s clan chiefs, camouflaged among the workers and with the support of some scabs, attacked the “garrison”, made up of about 40 workers of the SI Cobas with bare hands, and for about 10 minutes was left to act undisturbed by the police who were a few steps away and didn’t lift a finger.

The result is a worker from Piacenza with a smashed head, and currently hospitalized at the end of his life !!! The real identity of Zampieri is now evident: a mafia organization that acts with the support of Fedex and with the consent of the police. As happened two weeks ago in San Giuliano Milanese, these criminals have ambushed in an infamous and cowardly way, taking advantage of the less numerous presence of the garrison because of the commitment of workers on other fronts of struggle.

The heroic struggle of the Piacenza workers, in addition to inflicting heavy economic losses on the American giant and its Zampieri henchmen, is helping to reveal once and for all the real identity of Fedex: a criminal association that uses organized crime to repress workers’ protests with blood. We promised it three months ago and we are keeping our commitment: Fedex and Zampieri will have no respite until the job is returned to the Piacenza porters!

Their aggressions only strengthen the workers’ struggle and weaken and discredit the employers’ front! We will continue to respond blow for blow to their violence with the organized force of workers across the supply chain and the entire logistics sector. We will denounce in all places that the accomplices of tonight’s attempted murder are the Draghi government, Minister Giorgetti and the police forces who attack the strikes and assist attacks by armed gangs against the workers!

For this reason, on June 18, we invite all workers to join the national strike of Transport and Logistics, and we invite all proletarians, solidarity networks and movements that intend to oppose the brutality of bosses and dealers, to demonstrate on Saturday 19 June in Rome. SI Cobas clings to the side of the affected worker, hoping that everything goes well, and calls all its members to mobilize to ensure that this infamous aggression does not go unpunished.

SI Cobas Nazionale
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Feel like Fedex should probably face some international consequences as a result of this shit.
 
They won't. But I don't think this will break the will of the strikers. Its still a very marginal story though, not much attention being paid to this. Be surprised if the march in Rome on Saturday gets 10,000 people.
 
Flavour said:
Latest poll:

Lega 21,5 (-0,3)
PD 19,1 (-0,3)
FDI 18,7 (+0,3)
M5S 17,2 (+0,8)
Forza Italia 7,5 (-0,1)
Azione 3,1 (-0,1)
Italia Viva 2,5 (+0,1)
Sinistra Italiana 2,2 (-0,2)
Verdi 1,6 (-0,1)
Art.1-MDP 1,6 (+0,2)
+Europa 1,4

So the main right bloc (Lega, Forza, FdI) has a combined % of 47.7 FdI on the verge of overtaking PD. M5S continue to crumble.
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Two new polls with FdI ahead of PD and the right bloc edging even closer to 50%

SWG (Fieldwork: 9-14 June 2021 Sample size: 1,200)
LEGA: 21%
FdI: 20%
PD: 19%
M5S: 16%
FI: 7%

Euromedia poll (Fieldwork: 8 June 2021 Sample size: 800)
LEGA: 22%
FdI: 20%
PD: 18%
M5S: 16%
FI-EPP: 7%
 
There are mayoral elections coming up in a bunch of cities (including M5S-held Rome and Turin, which both a centre-left and centre-right bloc are aiming to take) which don't bode well for PD ... elections to be held at some point between September 15 and October 15 apparently.

Very hard to say what will happen: the right bloc would walk it in smaller towns / the countryside, but in the biggest, and most working class cities with the biggest immigrant populations? I'll be surprised but not completely and utterly shocked if they win one or both of these two cities.
 
Another violent attack by scabs on SI Cobas strikers at a different company:
Texprint Prato, aggrediti gli operai della ditta cinese licenziati che manifestano da mesi: 3 feriti

Machine translation says:

Texprint Prato, fired workers of the Chinese company who have been demonstrating for months attacked: 3 injured​


For over four months they have been protesting camped in front of the gates of their former factory. And this afternoon they were attacked by a group of Chinese workers, their former colleagues, who hit them with kicks and punches and tried to dismantle the picket. Tension in front of the gates of Texprint, the Prato textile company that has ended up at the center of the Sì Cobas' claims, which in recent months have denounced the unsustainable rhythms and conditions of exploitation carried out by the Chinese ownership of the company.

Today the police had to intervene to restore calm, followed by the 118 who transported three people to the emergency room. Five bruised protesters, attacked by a group of workers who were allegedly blocked at the exit from the company in a van. In a video of the scuffles, released by the grassroots union, some workers are seen kicking and punching three Pakistani citizens, former employees fired by Texprint, who participated in the sit-in. Someone throws stones, while others try to dismantle their tent. "It is a squad attack on striking workers", denounce by the Sì Cobas: "A sudden attack that destroyed the garrison, with the theft of banners and other objects".

A story, that of Texprint, which also ended up at the center of investigations by the Prato prosecutor, with an investigation into the alleged cases of exploitation of labor (always denied by the company) and a parallel investigation into the "harassment" that workers and managers of enterprise would be undergoing by a few dozen demonstrators. Up to now, every attempt at mediation initiated by the Region and the Municipality has been shipwrecked.
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sicobas.org

[TEXPRINT] Ancora un'aggressione squadrista contro i lavoratori in sciopero! A Prato 3 operai in ospedale, presi a mattonate e pugni - "TOCCANO UNO TOCCANO TUTTI"

ANCORA UN’AGGRESSIONE SQUADRISTA CONTRO I LAVORATORI IN SCIOPERO! ALLA TEXPRINT DI PRATO 3 LAVORATORI IN OSPEDALE: MATTONATE IN TESTA E PUGNI IN FACCIA, PRESIDIO DISTRUTTO! Nel video si vedono Hong Bo (socio della Texprint) con un mattone contro Gondal un lavoratore S.I. Cobas e Sang Yu zhang...
sicobas.org sicobas.org

[TEXPRINT] Yet another aggression against striking workers! In Prato 3 workers in hospital, taken to bricks and punches
June 16, 20210

STILL A SQUADRIST AGGRESSION

AGAINST STRIKING WORKERS!

AT TEXPRINT OF PRATO 3 WORKERS IN HOSPITAL:

BRICKS IN THE HEAD AND PUNCHES IN THE FACE, GARRISON DESTROYED!

In the video you can see Hong Bo (partner of Texprint) with a brick against Gondal, an S.I. Cobas worker, and Sang Yu zhang (director with relations with the 'ndragheta) in the foreground punching him.

They destroyed the garrison and stole the many banners that the solidarity workers had hung here at the garrison.

The owners of Texprint, who not by chance in recent months have received an anti-mafia interdicttiva, are finally throwing the mask!

WE ARE IN FRONT OF A CLEAR SQUADRIST STRATEGY, WHICH SEES BOSSES, MAFIOSI AND ARMED GANGS AT THEIR SERVICE ACTING IN A PROGRAMMED AND COORDINATED WAY, WITH THE SILENCE-ASSENT OF THE STATE AND THE FORCES OF LAW AND ORDER.

IT'S TIME TO SET UP GROUPS OF WORKER SELF-DEFENSE TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF WORKERS ON STRIKE.

SATURDAY, JUNE 19, WE INVADE THE STREETS OF ROME TO DEMONSTRATE OUR ANGER AGAINST THIS BARBARIC!

WE INVITE ANYONE WHO CAN

TO REACH THE GARRISON AT TEXPRINT IN PRATO.

National S.I. Cobas

Live from the Texprint garrison after the aggression of bosses and scabs:



3 workers are currently in hospital, but the garrison is holding out.

Touch one, touch all!

S.I. Cobas Prato and Florence

Solidarity with Prato comrades and Texprint workers

In the case of Fedex-tnt/Zampieri they were bodyguards hired by the company, here directly by the property.

So, different cases, but it's hard not to think that having seen the "laissez-fair" of the police in Tavazzano could have made the Texprint bosses feel free to move as they wanted... that's why, on June 18th, we will strike!

S.I. Cobas Piacenza
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Just realised it was a picket of a Lidl site as well - again, not going to hold my breath for it, but you'd really hope that Lidl will get some backlash elsewhere as a result of this.
 
What, Lidl, official fruit & veg supplier to the Italian national football team? Don't think so.

Ironically both Lidl's customer base and the striking workers of Si Cobas have something in common in that they are prevalently (at least in the big cities, re: Lidl) the immigrant working class
 
The workers suffering conditions so shitty they go on strike being the same people who shop at the discount supermarket (which, I have noticed, at least in Piedmont, does not employ many non-Italians on the checkouts) is sort of par for the course I guess.

There's also the factor here that to work on the checkout you're expected to speak Italian well -- but a lot of logistics workers (truck drivers, van drivers, delivery workers) are first-gen immigrants who don't speak Italian. With the notable exception of the Albanians and Macedonians, most immigrants to Italy don't arrive here having absorbed the language through popular culture, so many struggle to orient themselves and are ripe pickings for job offers with low pay and no public interaction.

Many employers in this sector actually want to employ people who don't have Italian citizenship but instead have a permesso di soggiorno (residence permit) which is dependent on employment, that way they can effectively threaten their workers with deportation (or at least a lot of bureaucratic hassle) if they dare fight back. But these workers aren't stupid, they're just disadvantaged, and as can very clear be seen their class consciousness is well-developed. Lots of solidarity between sectors.

The right wing of course has nothing to say about these injustices because the victim's are mainly non-Italian. The man who was killed the morning at Briandrate was Moroccan, for example. You can bet there'd have been a massive commotion from Salvini et al if the striker had been Italian and the murderer an immigrant.

It is true that there are sections of the immigrant working class in Italy who do not intend to live here and raise a family here or whatever (this is particularly true of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians and Sri Lankans, for some reason) and this is weaponized by the right, because these workers will deliberately put up with bad conditions in the short-term in order to save some money to take home. But this sort of logic doesn't fit with the profile of the workers in the logistics industry, who mostly are long-term residents -- in the case of the Eastern Europeans, Nigerians and Moroccans there are tons of 2nd generation families already and it won't be long before there are 3rd generation families.

The racist narrative (whether or not it's explicitly stated) that pits the Italian working class and immigrant working class against each other has obviously been quite successfully planted in the minds of millions: hence the very very high polling figures for nationalist, xenophobic political parties. But my belief (and hope) is that it's still actually more firmly rooted in the older generations (which, being one of the oldest countries on Earth, have a big influence). I think that on the ground there is a lot of solidarity among the workers in the logistics industry, and this is crucial: the racist narrative isn't taking hold where Italian, Moroccan and Romanian workers all stand on the same pickets. And that is very scary for the future of the right, hence why gangs of hooligan strikebreakers are being brought in to crack skulls.

The putrid odor of fascism is still there. They may even take power. But in the long-run, the unavoidable demographic trends make the demise of that racist narrative inevitable.
 
Yeah, I was kind of thinking that I'd hope unions in Germany (and every other country where Lidl operates for that matter) would raise the death as an issue there, but maybe that's expecting too much.
 
Thanks hitmouse, yes I can confirm this is the legit Si Cobas response, I've seen the Italian version on social media today
 
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