Demand #5: For a social strike: Demands of the Italian Social Strike Committees
Comrades in Italy or those that have participated in international meetings such as those surrounding Blockupy or the COP 21 conference in Paris will have encountered the concept of the “social strike”, but for many here in the UK it will still seem unfamiliar.
Inspired by Italian autonomist ideas around the “social factory”, the social strike is an attempt to respond to the changes in production patterns in the Global North. As mass workplaces have been broken up, unemployment has risen and working conditions have become increasingly precarious, the social strike is a call to move struggle from the workplaces to new terrains and using new tactics. Part of this is the discursive recognition and of the role that social reproduction and unpaid work play in post-Fordist societies, and an attempt to exploit, leverage and weaponise it in the course of struggle. Withdrawal of this work alone won’t work, a one-person strike is weak because we’re replaceable. Its mass withdrawal - the blocking or disruption of key sites of production and reproduction - is a different matter. We need to learn how to appropriate the means of social reproduction.
Because the primary locus of accumulation has shifted from the production of objects to the production of people, we face a crisis of social reproduction - a crisis in our ability to reproduce ourselves, with education, healthcare, childcare, housing, transport, social care and so on increasingly privatised and gated behind increasingly insurmountable paywalls. It follows, then, that the social strike needs to be the focus of our counterattack, both in order to defend ourselves, and to attack capital at its heart.
Given the current strength of the organised left in Europe, and the development of the tactic so far, it makes sense to think of the social strike as a process or perspective rather than an off-the-shelf tool. It will require the development of the left’s capacity to produce a popular narrative for the tactic through making particular, shared conditions visible, forging new alliances and connections on their basis, and mass participation. We see the production of demands as central to this process.
In Italy the social movements organised the first mobilisations under the slogan of Social Strike in November of last year to mixed results in 25 Italian cities. We thought it would be worthwhile publishing the demands made by the social strike committee.
1. To stop the Jobs Act. To extend (not eliminate) the rights under the Statute of workers starting from art.18. To abolish the Poletti law, its fixed-term ‘acausal’ contracts and the liberalisation of apprenticeships.
2. For the abolition of the 46 forms of contracts of law 30. Against the scam and the discrimination of the “Contract with increasing protections.” For a single contract with immediate protection.
3. For a European minimum wage. We are not willing to work for less than 10 Euros per hour.
4. For a universal basic income, not conditional on the acceptance of any work and to be financed by general taxation. € 15-20 billions are needed immediately against the Naspi scam, for which €1.6 billion was planned, which is sufficient for no more than 180,000 people - this in the face of 44% youth unemployment in Italy
5. For redistribution to the real beneficiaries (unemployed, NEET [Not in Employment, Education or Training] and underemployed) of the 1.5 billion in co-financing of the European Youth Guarantee program.
6. For the remuneration of all jobs, whether in the form of internships, apprenticeships, testing, volunteering or free jobs. No to the work agreement for Expo 2015*.
7. For the extension of the right to sickness and maternity to self-employed persons and against the increase in the tax rate for atypical professionals.
8. For the stabilisation of precarious workers in schools, universities, research institutions, public organizations and institutions.
9. For free education, against 'The Good School’ [a reform plan] of Renzi and the entry of private entities into places of education. For the real protection of the right to study and against the 150 million in additional cuts planned in the “Unlock Italy” decree.
10. For an massive increase in public investment in education and research, against the privatization of welfare, public utilities and common goods.
*An agreement which includes unwaged work at the World Expo. The social movements
have called a large demonstration when the Expo opens on May 2nd.
Thanks to @JacMackay and @Gnarrrgh for their help, and to members of Plan C London and Plan C Leeds for their development of many of these ideas.
Members of Plan C MCR
9/3/15