Cisl general secretary resigns

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In October 2000, Sergio D'Antoni, the general secretary of Italy's Cisl trade union confederation, announced his resignation to concentrate on a new political organisation. The Cisl executive committee has appointed Savino Pezzotta as the confederation's new general secretary. Mr D'Antoni's initiative may have implications for Italian politics and trade unionism.

In October 2000, Sergio D'Antoni, general secretary of the Italian Confederation of Workers' Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati dei Lavoratori, Cisl), Italy's second-largest trade union confederation with more than 4 million members, announced that he would leave the confederation on 2 December 2000 and dedicate himself to political activity. Mr D'Antoni's decision, which was made public during a popular television programme, was subsequently discussed by the Cisl executive committee, which acknowledged his resignation.

Mr D'Antoni's career

Sergio D'Antoni was born in Sicily in 1946 and worked initially as a labour law researcher at the University of Palermo. During the early 1970s he committed himself to trade unionism and in 1973 he became general secretary of the Cisl-affiliated metalworkers' union in Palermo. He was then elected secretary of Cisl's Puglia and Sicily regional organisation and in 1991 he was elected general secretary of the whole Cisl confederation. He was re-elected twice, in 1995 and in 1999. Mr D'Antoni has held important positions in the international trade union movement, as vice-president of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and a member of the executive committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

Mr D'Antoni's tenure as Cisl general secretary made him a key figure in the development of Italian industrial relations over the past decade. The main lines of Cisl's policy on issues such as workers' participation in companies, incomes policy and social concertation have been the result of Mr D'Antoni's initiatives. He contributed heavily to the national economic recovery policy which led to Italy's participation in the euro single currency and the accompanying EU Stability Pact. He also played a major role in the important tripartite national agreements signed in 1992 and 1993 (IT9803223F), the pension reform of 1996 and the concertation agreements of 1998 (IT9901335F) and 1999. Mr D'Antoni has pursued for many years, but without success, the objective of unity among the union confederations (IT9707307F). The failure of this project (IT9912137F) has deeply influenced many sets of negotiations, during which the three confederations have taken different attitudes regarding issues such as decentralised bargaining (IT9909345F) and relations with the government. Recently, the unions have had differing opinions over the government's 2001 national budget law proposal (IT0009162F).

After the failure of the trade union unity project, Mr D'Antoni increased his attempts to strengthen Cisl's political and social role. He launched a plan to create a "great Cisl" (La Grande Cisl), aimed at creating a stable relationship, including organisational links, with other "social Catholic" organisations (such as workers', cooperative and artisanal associations) (IT9806174N). Mr D'Antoni's work thus acquired an increasingly political slant. Massimo D'Alema, the former Prime Minister, had already tried to involve Mr D'Antoni in politics, offering him the position of minister of industry in his second government in the late 1990s. The centre-left People's Party (Partito Popolare), to which Mr D'Antoni belongs, had offered him a leading role on more than one occasion.

Mr D'Antoni's new project

Mr D'Antoni will now create a self-financed foundation called "European democracy for a free and united Europe" ("Democrazia Europea per un'Europa libera e solidale"), close to the centre political parties and inspired by Italian "democratic Catholicism" (as represented historically by figures such as Luigi Sturzo, Alcide de Gasperi and Giulio Pastore). Mr D'Antoni's foundation will be aligned with neither the centre-right grouping of political parties nor the centre-left grouping. He intends to create a "third pole", which he hopes can relaunch politics "starting from the contents, from a new humanism able to put at the centre of attention the members of society and the middle classes". He has suggested "a model of collaboration among workers and companies" and a "flexible tax and labour policy, able to reduce the gap between the North and the South of the country". The social, economic and institutional model proposed by Mr D'Antoni is inspired by the social policy of Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic Party (Christlich Demokratische Union, CDU). Mr D'Antoni has stated that, if his new foundation attracts an appropriate number of members, it will be transformed into a political party very similar to the German CDU and will participate in future elections.

Cisl's new general secretary

Sergio D'Antoni has suggested as his successor Savino Pezzotta, Cisl's current deputy general secretary, an appointment agreed unanimously by the confederation's executive committee. Mr Pezzotta should be appointed officially on 2 December 2000, when the confederal general council meets. On this occasion, the current confederal secretariat should also be confirmed and remain in place until Cisl's next congress in 2001.

Mr D'Antoni has underlined that Cisl and his new foundation will be independent of one another. However, the majority of Cisl's confederal secretaries will be members of the foundation, including Pier Paolo Baretta, who has been identified by the press as a possible opponent to Mr Pezzotta for the general secretary position at Cisl's next congress. Mr Baretta stated: "I will be a member of the foundation because so far it is a pre-political initiative". Mr Pezzotta has already joined the foundation, as has Melino Pillitteri, the leader of Cisl's pensioners' trade union.

Pierre Carniti, the general secretary of Cisl between 1979 and 1985, has expressed his doubts about Mr D'Antoni's decision, stating that "politics must be a personal experience and not the continuation of trade union activity." Referring to Mr D'Antoni's appeal to Cisl members to join the foundation, Mr Carniti said: "Cisl members have always decided independently how to vote ... the votes gathered by people who leave trade unions have always been insignificant."

The general secretaries of the other two main union confederations, Cgil and Uil- Sergio Cofferati and Luigi Angeletti respectively - have given their best wishes to Mr D'Antoni. Mr. Cofferati commented: "it means that I will have a different colleague to work with." Referring to Uil's recent election of a new secretary general (IT0007156N) and his own decision to stay in office till 2002, Mr Cofferati declared: "the backs change, but the goalkeeper doesn't."

Commentary

Sergio D'Antoni's initiative represents a change in the traditional relationship of trade union leaders to politics. The three union confederations have always favoured relations with particular political parties and many union leaders have moved relatively naturally to political life within these parties. Mr. D'Antoni's project, by contrast, represents a challenge to the current political system. This project aims at reassembling the unity of Catholic organisations which ended with the collapse of the post-war First Republic and its traditional political parties. Such a project could have implications for relations with the union confederations and with Cisl in particular. Mr D'Antoni's appeal to Cisl members to take part in his foundation could split, after many years, Cisl members along political lines. Cisl has always been characterised by its autonomy from the political system and this has allowed it to gather members having different, and sometime even contrasting, political and electoral viewpoints.

Savino Pezzotta, Cisl's designated new general secretary, has nevertheless affirmed that Cisl does not intend to modify its autonomous stance and that, thus, even if he regards Mr D'Antoni's project with interest, Cisl will not alter its approach towards politics. A survey among Cisl local leaders conducted by the daily newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore has confirmed the view of many observers that Mr D'Antoni's initiative will not modify Cisl's autonomous relationship with the political system.

The new approach adopted by Mr Pezzota, who will probably accentuate Cisl's competition with the other confederations, may perhaps bring some changes within Cisl. (Domenico Paparella, Cesos)