Inflation in Italy has been almost as high as in Britain - the annual rate was still over 13 per cent in March.
In the fight against the effects of inflation, however, the Italian working class has one vast advantage over its brothers and sisters in Britain. As long ago as 1945-47, the Italian working class won automatic cost of living increases to compensate for inflation ( a sliding scale of wages).
This system, in the way it is operated, doesn't give full protection against inflation - for example, the allocation of items on the price index was drawn up in 1955, so it no longer corresponds to workers' real cost of living - but it nevertheless represents a tremendous gain for the working class. In some industries particularly the metal industries, special protection has been gained for low paid workers. This has enabled Italian workers to defend themselves far better against the effect of price rises than the working class in Britain.
The defence and extension of this sliding scale of wages is going to require a real struggie, nowever, de the capitalists attempt more and more to take this protection away from the working class. Only a fortnight ago the head of the Bank of Italy called publicly for the ending of the sliding scale. This may well herald a new battle over the system.
But the sliding scale does not give complete protection - and of course it does not apply at all to many workers not in unions, in poorly unionised industries, and so on. In the last years, therefore, there have been a whole series of direct struggles against price increases.
INCREASES Two years ago, in Spring 1974, there was a struggle against increases in the cost of electricity, gas, transport and other services. In Turin a movement began to spread through the city called the 'self-reduction movement', launched by the left wing of the trade union movement.
When the price increases took place the workers in the factories said that they would not pay the rises and would continue to pay the old prices. With the buses, for instance, the workers even printed tickets with the old price which they used instead. Members of the workers committees at Fiat went to the bus terminals and made propaganda for people to pay the old prices, handing out these printed tickets with the old prices.
This move was supported by workers in une wransport system. Not only did they accept the tickets printed by the 'self-reduction movement', but when people came with the new priced tickets ment started, and eventually the government had to reintroduce the old prices.
reduction' was with the electricity prices. The workers printed the old pre-increase rate. When people came to the office to pay the bills the workers gave out these cheaper people to pay the old price. at all and do not pay any of the rates for electricity, gas and rents.
for non-payment. The workers inAMEN U MARKETS they said that it was too much. From mese developments a rear mass move The second big example of selfforms used to pay the bills with the forms and not the new ones, and told On a less massive way this type of food increases. struggle has been taken up in other towns - particularly by unemployed workers. In Naples, where there is an important unemployed workers organ. isation of around 10,000 people, the unemployed pay no transport charges They have also developed self-defence against bailiffs who come to seize property, disconnect the services, etc.
and supermarkets.
I SAUR volved in these struggles were also defended by the organised workers.
Another type of struggle against price increases developed after the first government crisis in January. The emergency economic measures then created another massive round of price increases - in one week petrol prices went up by 50 per cent, heating oil prices by 25 percent, and there was a 30 percent increase in the price of meat. The workers were very badly hit, particularly by the Some sections of the workers, particularly those under the influence of the revolutionary left, responded by setting up their own markets in the workers districts in cooperation with the peasants and farmers Sometimes this was done right in front of the big supermarkets where the prices were high. People were able to see concretely the difference in prices and therefore the profits being made by the food distributors 191101 In Milan and Turin, where the "Red Markets' had a real mass impact, the Metal Workers Union organised big markets on the same principle. In Florence, where there is a left-wing regional council, they were forced to undertake direct distribution from the farmers to the inhabitants. These measures of course aren't a solution in themselves, but are a very effective way of making agitation about who is responsible for inflation, and highlighting the capitalist profits in distribution. COMMUNES At the same time the revolutionaries have called for nationalisation of the main food manufacturers and distributors, and for the farmers and peasants commune to sell food directly to the workers and cut out the capitalist distributors. In some cases the traditional workers movement has taken up this demand. This is very important, because such a demand links the struggle at the basis to the question of a general political alternative - the formation of a lett government.