Italy

FIOM (The Italian Federation of Metalworkers) in Italy

Contributed by Enzo Russo [Head of the Fiom Genoa International Office]

On June 16th, 1901, the founding congress of Fiom, the Italian Federation of Metalworkers, began in Livorno. On the eve of the Congress, Fiom had about 20,000 members, mostly concentrated in Northern Italy. In Genoa, Fiom was present in all the main centres of the city’s steel, mechanical, and shipbuilding industries, with over 3,200 members. The birth of Fiom followed the development of the mechanical and steel industries in Italy, which led to an acceleration of processes of concentration and restructuring. Politically, the Congress took place a few months after the declaration of a general strike, proclaimed in Genoa in December 1900, to protest against the decision of the Saracco government to dissolve the Genoa Labor Chamber. The strike caused the fall of the government, paving the way for the “liberal turn” of the Giolitti government.

In 1906, Fiom participated in the founding of the General Confederation of Labor and, in 1919, signed its first national agreement, achieving the reduction of working hours to 48 hours per week. After the forced suspension of its activities during the Fascist period, it was reestablished in 1946 under the name of Federation of Metal Workers and Employees, retaining its original acronym. Today, Fiom, with over 300,000 members, is the most representative union among metalworkers in Italy

In Genoa, Fiom, with its 5,200 members out of a total of 22,000 metalworkers, is the most representative union in the sector. At the local level, the production network is characterized by mechanics, steel, and shipbuilding, despite these sectors having been heavily restructured and downsized in previous decades, affecting landmark companies of workers' struggles such as Ansaldo, ILVA (now Italian Steel Industries ), and Fincantieri.

At the same time, numerous "High Tech" companies have established themselves in our city, where the workforce is made up exclusively of engineers, technicians, and IT specialists: Leonardo in the aerospace and defense sector, Siemens, ABB, Hitachi Rail in automation, Paul Wurth, Tenova, and Danieli in the design of steel plants: these are just a few examples. With the growing importance of these companies, employees now represent over 50% of all metalworkers in our area. But this aspect should not make us forget another important ongoing process: the increasing presence of immigrant workers, concentrated in Genoa mainly in the shipbuilding sector. In Fincantieri, there are now over 4,300 workers, 850 direct employees, 3,500 in contracting companies. The latter are predominantly immigrant workers coming from dozens of different countries.

Giving representation to all these layers has been the challenging task that the FIOM of Genoa has undertaken for some time, with results that are evident to everyone: today, over 40% of FIOM members in Genoa are "white collars," a percentage that is beginning to reflect their actual weight in the category. At the same time, the daily union action aimed at improving wage conditions and defending the rights of immigrant workers, especially in subcontracting companies, has allowed us to establish numerous union representations in these companies.

Many immigrant workers from different countries, when elected, have become delegates for all workers, regardless of their different nationalities, religions, and languages, thus helping to consolidate an approach that steers workers away from corporatist and nationalistic ideas.

A result that was also achieved by developing initiatives in the field of solidarity volunteering, with Italian language classes held after working hours, or the distribution of food packages to the families of the neediest workers. Today in Genoa, no one is surprised when at demonstrations and strikes the engineer from the High-Tech company, the Italian steelworker, and the immigrant shipyard worker march side by side. Strikes in companies of engineers and technicians in solidarity with workers, or by workers in solidarity with office employees, are now both part of the heritage of Fiom in Genoa.

The international activity of Fiom

In Genoa, In 2017, Fiom opened a new area of activity by opening its own international office. The French historian Fernand Braudel described Genoa as a “sensitive seismograph that records every vibration of the vast world.” A statement that is still very relevant today, considering the highly internationalized industrial network that characterizes it. Just think of its most important industry in the transport sector: the port of Genoa, but not only that. Most of the companies mentioned earlier in this article are multinational corporations operating in the global market. In Europe, where a single labor market has existed for years, it would be an illusion to think of effectively defending workers' conditions in these companies while remaining confined to a narrow national perspective. In 2018, Arcelor Mittal, which at that time was the world’s leading steel group, acquired Ilva, present in Genoa with a plant employing around 1,200 people. The FIOM delegates, who held the majority on the factory council, immediately felt the need to connect with the union representatives present in the European plants of this global giant, to compare their wage and working conditions across the different plants while also sharing their various experiences of struggle. We therefore invited some unionists and delegates from IG Metall in Bremen to Genoa, immediately clarifying our approach: a common union action in Europe must necessarily start with a discussion among the union delegates of companies with locations in Europe, creating, where conditions allow it, a European Coordination of Factory Councils. At first, it was not easy to make our approach understood by our interlocutors.

Almost always we have been told that European trade union structures already exist, such as IndustryAll and European Works Councils. This is true, and many of us, due to the trade union roles we hold, participate in meetings of these structures. But we explained to them that organizing meetings with delegates from the same company but from plants in different countries, allowing them to compare their economic, professional, and employment conditions, is a completely different matter. Not without obstacles, we succeeded, creating a European Coordination of Steelworks Works Councils, initially with Italian and German delegates. We started with IG Metall not so much because of an affinity with its union model—Fiom does not share the German union co-management model—but because we are aware that any attempt to create an international trade union structure on our continent would be doomed to fail without participation of the strongest and most organised union in Europe.

Subsequently, we discussed this topic with the CGT delegates from Arcelor Mittal in Fos Sur Mer when we met them to request their participation in the European Coordination of Steelworks Works Councils. On that occasion, the Italian and French delegates present at the meeting immediately connected, discussing and comparing wages, working hours, shifts, and factory safety conditions, thereby demonstrating in practice that this is the right way to start thinking together about how to improve working conditions and better defend ourselves against the attacks of our class opponents, countering the daily practice that seeks to constantly fuel divisions among workers from different sites, both within and across national borders.

In September 2022, we embarked on a similar path with the Comisiones Obreras and the delegates of the workers' councils of Arcelor Mittal in Aviles and Gijon, in Asturias, where we found the same affinities during discussions among the delegates. After their joining the European Coordination, the relationship that developed among these delegates—Italian, French, and Spanish—allowed us to jointly produce some statements against the war. The most recent complete withdrawal of Arcelor Mittal from Italy and from the shareholding of Acciaierie d’Italia has slowed, but not stopped, the opportunities for meetings with the delegates of German, French, and Spanish workers' councils, with whom the dialogue on the difficult situation of the steel sector in Europe continues.

In parallel with this important experience, the international office organized meetings with works councils from the shipbuilding sector (Fincantieri, STX, Navantia) and developed collaboration in the engineering and technical sectors with IG Metall in Wolfsburg, which has for years cooperated in Italy with Fiom Emilia Romagna in the automotive sector, where Volkswagen owns Lamborghini and Ducati. This was an interesting experience that allowed us to deepen our mutual understanding of unionization among the higher-qualified wage layers. On this front, we also organized meetings with delegates from Airbus Bremen, Toulouse, and the Sophie Antipolis technology hub.

Many of the discussions held in meetings over the years are reported in the International Bulletin of Fiom in Genoa, where positions are sometimes even conflicting between delegates and officials of their respective trade unions, especially when dealing with hot topics such as protectionism, tariffs, and stances on European rearmament and war. But a debate on these issues in the increasingly stormy period we are going through is unavoidable; the task of the class-based union is also to “open windows to the world” and remind all workers that they are part of an international class that shares the same interests worldwide. This is the difficult path that Fiom Genoa has decided to follow with passion and determination.