last year.
the Labour Government will try on in the next few months.
Just like Healey, the Talian Gov ernment decided to hike up the prices of public services —power, transport, and telephones. A 30% rise in electrIcity bills, they said, was "absolutely essential" to 'improve the health of the oconomy" in the 'most difficult period in the country's history Yet last week the Itahan Government signed an agreement with the unions that cut electricity rates 'at a stroke'! Why this sudden change of heart? Had the season of goodwill gone to the heads of the Italian ruling class?
RESISTANCE Not quite, For the past three months the Government has been faced with a massive -and growingcampagn of militant resistance by Italian workers to their plans.
The trade union bureaucrats opp osed Government economic policy, but tried to limit actions against it to a series of half-day and one-day erneral strikes. These were important displays of working class solidandy and mintancy, but by themalves were no more than a periodic stance for the Government and the bosses, Since the trade union buteaucrats were not prepared to go beyond these limited actions and launch an all-out fight, the Govern sent could afford to ignore them.
But rank-and-file trade unionists, im conjunction with the organisatlons of the revolutionary left, took the struggle a step further, They organised massive direct action in which workers simply refused to pay increases in bus fares and clectricity bills.
In the big industrial cities of Milan and Turin workers would board the buses and refuse to pay the new fares. Instead, democratIcally clected committees collected Subscribe to Red NAME.... There is only one country in Europe where the capitalist cconomic crisis is hitting harder than it is in Britain that is Italy, There prices went up by 25% A series of Italian governments have taken exactly the same road as the Tory and Labour Governments here and tried to make the working class foot the bill for the crisis. Dennis Healey's last budget was just a small sample of the sort of 'austerity" measures that the Italian Government have adopted and the fares at the old rate and sent them in a lump sum to the bus company. And by the time the Government gave in, 70,000 workers in Turin alone were part of a movement which was refusing to pay increased clectricity bills.
The leaderships of the trade unions and the workers' parties including the Italian Communist Party - opposed this struggic, denouncing it as 'innoportune and dangerous, But their fear of this movement growing beyond their control was an important force in pushing them to keep up even their limited campaign of resistance lo the Government.
The same fear struck the Govcrnment, Tens of thousands of workers were openly flouting the law, the Government, and the re formist leaders of the workers' movement. Where would this all end? Rather than run the risk of finding out the Government decided to give in.
They did this through a deal with the unions in an attempi to cover the fact they were actually surrendering to the mass movement of irresponsible law-breakers, and in the hope that they could persuade the unions to call off their campaign at the same time.
But with this big victory under their belts the Italian workers are not about to accept lying down the other attacks on their living standards that the Government has up its sleeve, With gas, electricity, post office and public transport charges all going up in this country in the next few months the British workers' movement could certainly take a useful lesson from our Italian comrades" book.
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