Stand up, you’re not alone

the challenge of the Councils of Freelance and Precarious Workers

by Francesco Raparelli*

Dal 2 al 4 ottobre scorsi, CLAP ha partecipato al I Transnational Strike Meeting che si è svolto a Poznan. Tanto nei workshop che nelle assemblee plenarie il confronto si è soffermato sul problema/rompicapo della sindacalizzazione del lavoro vivo contemporaneo. CLAP ha dato il suo contributo, raccontando l’esperienza fatta in questi 2 anni di attività. Molti degli intervenuti – dall’Europa dell’Est, dalla Germania, dalla Regno Unito – hanno espresso interesse per CLAP e le lotte che sta sostenendo al fianco di precari e autonomi. Per questo, pubblicando l’articolo che segue, scritto da Francesco Raparelli per la rivista “Inchiesta” e tradotto da Eva Gilmore, abbiamo deciso di avviare una sezione multilinguistica, utile a rafforzare la connessione e condivisione europea degli strumenti e dei conflitti. 

CLAP is an acronym standing for Camere del Lavoro Autonomo e Precario, Councils of Freelance and Precarious Workers. The Councils were opened in the autumn of 2013 in three self-managed spaces of Rome and form a common union association. These spaces are: Officine Zero, a regenerated factory in the Casal Bertone area; Esc, a self-managed atelier in the San Lorenzo neighbourhood; and Puzzle, a self-managed student house in Tufello. A fairly new experiment, hence, that still has a long way to go and many tests to pass. But one that is trying to provide a daring answer to the most relevant issue of our time: the (almost total) insignificance of existing trade unions when it comes to protecting precarious, casual, freelance, migrant workers. But before going into the details of this experience, allow me to discuss the background context and challenges within which it emerged. A look at the context (section 1), then one at what has been done so far (section 2), to conclude with a comment on the political perspective (section 3) that CLAP, among others and together with others, is helping to open up.

1. The two transformations

Since the beginning, CLAP set its challenge along two main trajectories: transforming self-managed spaces – social centres – in a new union device; and promoting a return of the labour movement rto its trades council form. Two trajectories converging in an essential urgency: putting an end to the dichotomy between mutualistic practices and bargaining, (horizontal) solidarity and (vertical) conflict.

For almost three decades now, social centres and self-managed spaces have innervated the urban scene in Italy with forms of alternative social aggregation, education and training, protection of the most fragile citizens (especially migrants), despite their total lack of influence on labour and workers struggles. And in the course of such decades – those of the neoliberal counter-revolution – trade union organisations, with a few noble exceptions (FIOM, the metalworkers federation, being one of them, together with grassroots unions) gave up the struggle and paved the way to precarisation and to the impoverishment of an entire generation that came with it. With the end of the No Global movement and the outbreak, from 2008 onwards, of the Great Depression, on the hand social centres came at a standstill, incapable of regenerating themselves and attracting new young life forms, while on the other the labour movement proved to be completely powerless in face of an accelerated neoliberalism. This made the harsh truth ever clearer: there is no elective community that can survive the working poor and mass unemployment wave; and there is no trade union that keep existing without going back to the struggle and, with that, to the experimentation and expansion of new mutualistic practices – the only alternative being that corruption and subordination to the dictates of company management.

Of course, these are subjective trajectories, requiring boldness, commitment, tenacity. They are imposed by the historic change we are immersed in. The Bismarkian and ordoliberal management of the European crisis is attacking wages with great violence, both directly and indirectly by attacking the welfare state (education, health care, pensions). If underemployment used to be exception, it is now the norm – in southern Europe in particular. In Italy, the Workers Bill of Rights (Statuto dei lavoratori), national collective bargaining and the use of fixed-term contracts have all been deregulated: a new scenario, where employment is replaced by employability and under-paid work leaves quickly the way to free, unpaid work (see the EXPO model for example). After all, anything would do, as long as it’s a job.

To contrast such violence all weapons seem ineffective: working people have been stripped of their rights and appear weak, isolated, almost always immersed in a wild competition with poorer workers (migrants in particular). Rebuilding solidarity, where a hopeless and angry sense of solitude reigns, is the first, major battle to win. As much as opening up spaces where fragmentation can be recomposed, the tragedy of daily life can be shared, and the little spare time one has left can be used to pursue common objectives. And in doing so, find a way for the many disputes, for the many ‘NOs’ that are out there, not to remain totally fragile and inoffensive. Keeping together labour struggles and mutualism means going back to the origins, back to the trades councils, but doing so using new weapons: those of digital communication, knowledge-sharing, of the viral circulation of claims and struggles, of the transnational connection of organising efforts.

2. What is CLAP?

Back to the origins, hence, but in the name of innovation: with many limits, typical of any young experience, this is the challenge that the Councils of Freelance and Precarious Workers have set for themselves. But let us go further into the details.

CLAP is trying to connect three functions that, within the crisis of traditional trade unions, tend to be disconnected: providing services, organising workers, promoting mutualism. It does so in the first place by providing labour and legal counselling in both collective and individual labour disputes, and tax assistance to freelancers and self-employed workers, as much as to associations and cooperatives. These are essential tools in order to reach out to, investigate and protect workers who are often isolated, scared, unorganised. Moreover, they represent precious opportunities to start a first, albeit insufficient, process of union alphabetisation. Secondly, when the labour dispute in question allows it, real and proper organising efforts are put into motion. Of course, both the technical class composition and the barbarian nature of today’s labour market mean that, in most cases, such labour disputes involve a small number of workers; in fact, on many occasions, they are individual disputes. Yet, CLAP’s organising support is essential: be it a matter of staging a picket, planning a communication campaign, conquering an institutional negotiation (when institutions of proximity are involved). Thirdly, providing forms of mutualism, meaning education and training opportunities on tax accounting topics and on the labour law (or what is left of it after the recent labour reform, the ‘Jobs Act’), but also time banking opportunities and mutual support at struggle level. Indeed, mutual support is the only way to respond to the tragic weakness that fragmentation implies.

So, through its activities, CLAP tries to connect different typologies of workers who are often hostile to one other. The main division runs, unquestionably, along the line of colour. With the crisis, and with mass unemployment in particular, the migrant workforce has become a “threat”: it can be, and it is, constantly blackmailed; it costs less; it is used to impose a generalised reduction of wage and protection levels, etc. The second source of division regards self-perception: despite being poor, with a turnover not exceeding 12-15 thousand euros per year, freelancers tend to perceive themselves as something completely different from MacDonald’s precarious workers. They feel they belong to the skilled workforce, despite being poorly paid for their work and being subject to an extremely high tax pressure; but they feel that, with a bit of luck, they could make it and climb the ladder… Too bad that luck has long abandoned Italy, and social mobility is a nothing but a memory of the pastr. Skilled workers who cannot count on their daddy’s help have only two options: either exodus – with 100,000 young people a year fleeing the country – or under-paid work. And the working poor disaster is increasingly investing not only generic freelancers but also self-employed professionals listed in specific professional registers, from lawyers to journalists, from paraprofessional chemists to engineers. This is why the urgency of the coalition, and the need to leave parochial interests aside, is felt with increasing awareness.

Since it was activated, less than a year ago, CLAP has supported about thirty small and medium labour disputes, involving: self-employed health care workers; social workers; precarious workers from the services and retail chains sectors; workers of the logistics sector; migrant workers. The most frequent, tragic problem is people not been paid for their work. Labour disputes do not always bring about a greater political awareness, but we are managing to create new bonds, a small web of resistances where isolation and loneliness used to be the rule.

3. The urgency of the Coalition

Why creating a small union association, instead of contributing with our new young forces to already existing labour organisations? There are at least two answers to the question. The first: existing trade unions, even the most militant ones, keep focusing on a specific type of worker, that of the employee. Of course, with the Jobs Act [i.e. the recent labour reform in Italy] things are turning ugly, very ugly, also for employees having a permanent work contract. But some differences still persist, at least in terms of the way workers perceive themselves and, consequently, of organising practices. The second reason is that speaking of work, nowadays, means dealing with an irreducible plurality of forms of exploitation, ethical profiles, languages and relations. And such plurality must also be reflected at the level of union and organising devices. On top of all this, we also believe that the major trade union confederations in Italy are by now impossible to reform, their neoliberal conversion having – in many cases – reached a point of no return.

And if we have two reasons motivating us, we also have two challenges to face: on the hand, fully politicising the economic conflict; on the other, building a Social Coalition. Let me clarify this point.

The main objective of neoliberal governance, beyond that of fully imposing the competition principle as the holy law to be enforced on Earth without complaining, is to de-politicise the economy. What does this mean? It means to completely empty out and violently marginalise the conflict between capital and labour. Corporate interest is the only thing that should count, us all being – according to the dominant rhetoric – the makers of our own success, i.e. our own human capital. Even when we cannot make our ends meet: actually, when that’s the case, we are the ones to blame, for having lived beyond our possibilities. Conquering back the “two” dimension, the separation, the vertical conflict, means re-politicising work and workers’ struggles. Yet, the kind of politicisation we need is also one capable, for once and for all, to get rid of the division between the Political and the Social. Organising and defending unorganised labour must increasingly coincide with the development of political subjectivity: since years now, the new technical class composition (mass education, access to IT technologies, etc.) has been demanding such a leap!

In this sense, the Social Coalition is a way to think of the labour movement to come. The tradition wants labour organisations to exist to protect workers; when these organisations wish to go political, they are expected to form alliances with the “civil society”. Meaning: the labour movement at the centre, surrounded by all its allies, with everyone holding on tight to its identity. On the contrary, the idea of the Coalition speaks of a pluralism of subjects and organising practices which rejects any reductio ad unum. To borrow the philosopher’s words, the multiple becomes the noun. Trade unions defending employees continue to exist, but their action is accompanied by that of many small and big union devices that help protecting precarious workers, freelancers and self-employed professionals, students, migrant workers. The Strike Meeting and the Social Strike of November 14, 2014 – two mobilisations that CLAP whole-heartedly participated to – represent an attempt to start experimenting such a Social Coalition. Nothing more than a first attempt, of course, but also the unexpected good surprise we should continue to pursue.

*Translation from Italian by Eva Gilmore