Referendum, unions seeking political visibility: the appointment of June 8 and 9 will be an "electoral" test for Landini's CGIL

The referendum date is approaching, but attention is not taking off. There are those who discuss the right and duty to participate in the vote : in fact, the five questions (four relating to labor regulations, one on citizenship rules) require a form of binary democracy. Either yes or no. It will be said that not even the electoral consultations require anything different, at least in relation to the preference to be expressed : here too there is a yes or a no, relative to the single list chosen. The voter has been deprived for years of the possibility of orienting the choice by expressing the name of his favorite candidate .

The fact remains that this is a union-driven initiative: the parties, including those in opposition (and therefore inclined towards the repeal initiative) do not agree on everything. Almost on nothing. This is a referendum in which the CGIL seems to want to do a big test on its “electoral” following, but in a different form. Nature would like union democracy to be an exercise within organizations, instead the CGIL – and its leader Maurizio Landini – continues to rehearse for direct political protagonism.

The union – at least the CGIL, but not only – has decided to do politics, while its job should always have been that of negotiation, at a territorial and national level: the protection of workers has its maximum level of commitment that coincides with bargaining. And yet, more and more often, this is the terrain where the union performs with less application and incisiveness . This can be seen from how much politics – at least some parties – claims the need to set, for example, a minimum wage, regardless of productivity, negotiation, and the close comparison between the rights and duties of the social parties involved.

In short, the exchange of roles has been underway for some time. The June meeting will offer a new test of the desire for political visibility of the union front (read always Cgil and Landini). And yet, the union world, according to many, does not yet have what it takes to receive a patent of democratic legitimacy. It does not certify members or budgets, it does not allow controls on financing, despite being directly and indirectly involved in every provision of public services, as an obligatory intermediary with the Public Administration , or as a training body in the world of work.

There are even those who consider trade union activity to be substantially in derogation from what is expressly provided for in Article 39 of the Constitution, which in fact has never been articulated by consequent legislation. Failure to register trade unions makes it impossible to answer those who ask how many and which trade unions there are in Italy? This is no small matter, not only in relation to the rules of democracy, but above all to avoid that fragmentation of representation that often makes it difficult to exercise duties, as well as rights.

Not only that, the renewed battle - and to tell the truth substantially anti-historical - in favor of the restoration of Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, does not affect the union as an employer. Yes, the employees of the union organizations, and they are not few, would not be protected: in reality for them, as for the employees of political parties there has never been protection, explicitly excluded by a law of the State, that no one deems appropriate to repeal by parliamentary initiative or by referendum initiative.

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