Guglielmo Meardi - Trade Union Activists, East and West: Comparisons in Multinational Companies

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Trade Union Activists, East and West

First published 2000 by Gower Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright Guglielmo Meardi 2000

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 00134484

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-73653-5 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-315-18589-7 (ebk)

Contents

Guide

Figures

Tables

I cannot start the acknowledgements with anyone but the co-authors of this book: the many union officers, activists, members, as well as ordinary workers who helped me and took part in formal and informal conversations. While having much more important business of their own, they gave me lots of their time and very often their contributions impressed me with their high sociological quality. Not only this, they often received me with friendship and real hospitality. Whether drinking an espresso or a Zywiec, whether savouring a golonka po bawarsku in Silesia or some spaghetti alia carbonara in Tuscany, the moments of informal socialisation with the living body of the unions have remained the best experiences of the research project.

The industrial workers were not, however, the only people I exploited. This book originates in my doctoral dissertation, and I am indebted for their invaluable help to my three instructors: Bianca Beccalli, Michel Wieviorka and Colin Crouch who at different stages and with different styles looked after me. They all gave their careful and precious criticism without reservation.

I worked on this book across four countries, five high schools and a dozen plants. I have not maintained a database of the people who helped me but I would like to acknowledge at least Olivier Cousin, Richard Hyman, David Ost, Marta Petrusewicz, Marino Regini, Vittorio Rieser, Philippe Schmitter and Alain Touraine. Several people have straggled with my macaronic English in order to make it readable: Nicki Hargreaves, Nicky Owtram, Conor Cradden and Gerard Sharpling are the heroes.

The most decisive help was received, however, in Poland. Marcin Frybes treated me as a Pole, a honour I did not expect to ever receive. Grazyna Ulicka and Mirosiawa Grabowska took care of me as opiekunki (protectors) during my stages at the University of Warsaw in 1996 and 1998. Wieslawa Kozek and Jolanta Kulpinska kindly invited me to the Congress of the Polish Sociological Association in 1997, as well as to various seminars. I also received useful suggestions from Juliusz Gardawski, Leszek Gilejko, Kazimierz Kloc, Ireneusz Krzemiski, Pawe Kuczyski, Piotr Marciniak and Wodek Pakw.

AFP	Piombino Steelworks
AWS	Solidarity Electoral Action
CFDT	French Democratic Labour Confederation
CGIL	General Italian Confederation of Labour
CGT	General Labour Confederation
CISAL	Italian Confederation of Autonomous Workers Unions
CISL	Italian Confederation of Worker Unions
CISNAL	Italian Confederation of National Labour Unions (linked to the MSI)
Cobas	Basis Committees
CRZZ	Central Trade Union Council (official unions until 1981)
DS	Left Democrats (mutation of the PDS in 1998)
EMF	European Metalworkers Federation
ETUC	European Trade Union Confederation
EWC	European Work Council
FAT	Food and Tobacco Federation (associated to the CISL)
FM	Italian Federation of Metalworkers (associated to the CISL)
FIOM	Federation of Manual and Clerical Metalworkers (associated to the CGIL)
FLAI	Agroindustry Federation (associated to the CGIL)
FLM	Metalworkers Federation (unitary federation of FIOM, FIM, UILM from 1972 to 1984)
FSM	Low-powered Car Factory
FSO	Warsaw Car Factory
KPN	Confederation of Independent Poland (nationalist party)
KPP	Confederation of the Polish Employers
MNC	Multinational company
MSI	Italian Social Movement (neo-fascist party)
NSZZ	Independent Autonomous Trade Union
OPZZ	All-Polish Coalition of Trade Unions (official unions since 1982)
PCI	Italian Communist Party
PDS	Democratic Party of the Left (heir of the PCI)
PZPR	Polish United Worker Party (Communist)
RLS	Workers Representatives for Safety
ROP	Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland
RSU	United Trade Union Representatives
Sida	Automotive Union (Fiat company union)
Sin-Cobas	Inter-Industry Trade Union of the Rank and File Committees
SLAI	Inter-Industry Trade Union of Self-organised Workers
SLD	Alliance of the Democratic Left (mutation of the PZPR)
UGL	General Labour Union (mutation of the CISNAL)
UIL	Italian Labour Union
UILM	Italian Union of Metalworkers (associated to the UIL)
UP	Labour Union
UW	Freedom Union

Some months after the fall of communism, I had one of my first (at that time still accidental and with the help of a language mediator) conversations with Polish workers. At a certain point one of my interlocutors incidentally said: You are in a different situation, youre a capitalist. What I knew about class consciousness from Marxist readings and sociology textbooks, which I already knew to be barely adequate for the analysis of the Italian situation, was challenged by the involuntary offensiveness of an incidental sentence.

When looking at Polish workers (and later, at Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Hungarians, Albanians and Yugoslavs) I was continually surprised by a number of similarities, especially in practical situations, with their Western counterparts, and yet at the same time by their difference from them. This was most striking in the case of the trade unions, traditionally the spokespersons (although not necessarily representative) of the working class. I started to wonder whether union activists from the East and the West managed to communicate. From this curiosity stemmed the research project on which this book is based.

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