Sindacalesimo o sindacalismo

Our legacy comes from a not too distant past, which has seen, progressively and not without casualties and wounded left on the field (not even too figuratively), the growth and strengthening of organizations born with the noblest purposes. Protections, achievements of rights, safeguarding of common interests, daughters of modern industrialization. One must never think, resting on what has been achieved so far, that what we possess is “forever” or destined to be untouchable. Every achievement must be guarded and defended, with grit and rigor, simply because someone may decide to eliminate or alter it at their own pleasure. The whole way of thinking about work has changed, not even too slowly, over time and especially in recent years, which have seen the entire West in crisis, more or less real, there has been a profound shock, which has come to justify laughable wage compensations. Everything that is presented to us as “sudden” and “unexpected” within a strongly structured economy like the capitalist one with a deep liberal imprint, obviously is not, or at least it is only for us small pawns on the great chessboard, where the game is managed by much nobler and more powerful pieces. Remaining on the surface of the many theories of capitalist political economy, it clearly emerges that everything can grow up to a certain point beyond which it is no longer possible, that money does not self-generate by simple coupling and that, in order to continue earning, it is necessary to trigger a crisis that causes a reset of the economy (or at least a significant collapse) by predefining which is the “sacrificable part” of the social context, because someone must be sacrificed so that the whole gigantic mechanism can continue to function. As in a chess game, the first pieces that somehow must be sacrificed are the pawns, so following the metaphor I have chosen, we quickly understand who these pawns are. The strong unions of the past have turned into fiefdoms, there are Lords who lead them, they try not to create too much friction among themselves, but neither do they create it with the power from which they should protect their members. More or less as one would manage a company, the essential purpose (today the term mission is preferred), remains the maintenance of the existing system or its growth when possible, protections come later, much later. What therefore justifies the alternative to belonging to a system of absorption and flattening is to turn elsewhere for the protection of one's rights. But where? It is no longer justifiable to adhere to a political belonging that justifies the obligation to join a union representation that in practice, when it comes to moving from talk to action, fills our hands with a handful of flies. However, if one wishes to distinguish oneself from absorption in some way, to signal that the rights of a fundamental profession like ours in the national health service are not well protected or often forgotten, one risks being labeled as corporatist. I do not understand why this term is used with a negative connotation, it is not a matter of closing ranks or simple presumption, if no one is able to protect the interests and needs of a profession, it is necessary to turn to those who, at least, make a declaration of intent in this sense. Yet there are many small but important signs that something has moved thanks to “corporatism”: the Court of Cassation has ruled on the recognition of changing time, in Rimini it was finally possible to obtain payment for midweek holidays as had never been settled before, all structural and organizational shortcomings have always been reported, no other voice has risen so strongly to protest against violence against healthcare personnel. None of these things would have happened if there had not been the corporatist voice. We live in times in which, from this sort of social exasperation, we will have to be brought back to common sense, the unidirectional/individualistic economy will have to bend, for the good of all of us, to a circular/shared one, for the representation and protection of one's profession it will be essential to move from unionism to trade unionism, to make ours not only the identity of a profession that has not yet understood itself, but above all to abandon any form of conformity to something that has never belonged to us.

Dario Porcaro
Manager Nursing Up Rimini