Mass lay-offs at Fiat

Scan page 2

A combination of the world-wide crisis of the motor industry and the defensive manoeuvres of the hard-pressed Italian capitalists produced a sensational attack on workers in Fiat last week.

The Itallan motor giant, jointly owned by Italian capital and Gaddafy's government in Libya, announced that 78,000 workers (out of 114,000) would be put on short time throughout the months of June and July.

The management blames this move on a drop in world-wide •... ..... man param an demand (50% of Fiat cars are exported) and claims to need to cut its stocks by 30,000 cars.

There can be no doubt of the ferocity of the objective economic crisis facing Fiat-but trade union leaders also believe that the layoffs are meant-BL style-to soften up the workforce in advance of the impending negotiations on a new wage contract.

The workforce certainly regards the management's action as provocative and is putting great pressure on the unions to call action against Fiat.

The government of Francesco Cossiga clearly regards the situation as an emergency and Cossiga himself was forced to hold an emergency meeting with national union leaders.

The Christian Democrat Party is clearly alarmed by the possible effects such a dramatic new anti-working class attack may have on its chances in the country-wide local elections which take place on June 8-and on the outcome of which almost certainly depends the future of Cossiga's shaky centre-left The credibility of the Christian Democrat-Socialist coalition has been further undermined by continuing financial scandals concerning leading Christian Democrats and by the failure of the recent wave of arrests of Red Brigade members to halt their assassinations.

The arrests followed the revelations of Patrizio Peci who collapsed under police interrosalon and wrote a 60-page confession' including details of the structure, members and sate houses of the Red Brigades in Turin and Genoa.

Although the authority of the document is open to doubt, it has exploded the myth that support for the Red Brigades is limited petit-bourgeois misfits.

The majority arrested were factory workers, youth and housewives, with one worker being seized in a raid on the assembly line at Fiat.

The fact that such layers are driven to support the tactics of the Red Brigades is a decisive condemnation not only of the class collaboration of the Italian trade unions and Stalinists but also of the failure of the main Italian left groups and tendencies to offer any effective road for mass action against Italian capitalism's attacks against the working class.

Scan page 3

SOCIALIST PRESS. Hednesda: 14 Mar 1930 -INERNATIONAL-