In the economic insert of Corriere della Sera on February 13, as a corollary to an article titled “Young people trapped. Paid little, right from the start”, a graph was published on the historical series of workers’ wages in Italy that looks at the years between 1975 and 2018. The graph is interesting apart from the fact that it analyzes a fairly long time span, almost 50 years, because it divides workers into three age groups: 15 to 29, 30 to 49, 50 and above.

In the past months, OECD statistics have caused an uproar over the fact that the average wage in Italy is 2.9% lower than it was in 1990. The data in the graph confirms this picture by enriching it with some important elements.

For the youngest group of workers, ages 15 to 29, the average wage from 1975 to 2018 has never risen; in fact, it has fallen steadily! If, in 1975, the average wage was at an index of 80, in 2018 it was at roughly 58, which is more than a quarter less. So for proletarian youth, the average wage has not fallen by 2.9% since 1990, but by more than 27.5% since 1975!

A typical employer action, endorsed by the regime unions (CGIL, CISL, UIL, UGL), is to introduce dual - contracts allowing companies to introduce reduced pay for new hires, thereby dividing workers with a two - tiered pay system.

This has happened and continues to happen with company agreements and, on a general level, with the introduction of flexible contractual forms, which have made job insecurity rampant. Such it is that today, young people receive actual starvation wages and suffer the utmost from the blackmail of dismissal.

Our first age group - This condition of proletarian youth is also mystified with the infamous ideological propaganda that portrays young people, naturally considered as a homogeneous social group above class divisions, with no desire to work: many of them toil harder than ever before and the bosses can exploit them better all the better for it.

Let’s look at the second age group, 30-49 - For these workers, we see that the average wage remained basically unchanged from 1975 to 1990: an index of 124, approximately. After 1990, a decline begins, until in 2018 we have an index of approximately 108. So even for these workers, the average wage in 2018 is lower than it was in 1975, roughly by a little over 15%! And today, after 4 years, it will certainly be worse, due to rising inflation.

The third age group: workers over the age of 50 - This fraction of the working class is the only one that has seen the average wage rise appreciably after 1975, when the index was 120. Growth occurs until 2000, when it reaches an index of 148: an increase of 23.3%. Since 2000, a decline begins, bringing the average wage for workers over age 50 in 2018 to an index of 122. Just above the 1975 index, but we can assume by now - in 2023 - equal to or below that.

The graph confirms our party’s assertion: with the 1973-74 economic crisis, the cycle of growth in capital accumulation for capitalistically mature - so - called Western - countries came to an end and the cycle of overproduction crises, manifested through the outbreak of periodic recessionary crises, opened.

This was reflected in the conditions of the proletarian class, in a halting of their progress and the beginning of their retreat, at first gradual and then increasingly pronounced.

Young proletarians, who until the year 2000, could hope, as the years went by, to remedy the early hard times of meager entry - level wages with increasing wages as seniority accrues, find that today even this faint hope has gradually faded away and they are left with the prospect of wages closer and closer to pure subsistence and with little hope for growth.

One can clearly see the long - term results of the employers’ tactic of dividing workers: first they hit at the young while leaving adults and the elderly unscathed. After 15 years, in 1990, those young people, having become adults, accustomed to decreasing wages, continued to receive decreasing wages compared to what workers in that age group received before. Since 2000, the descent has also begun to affect those over 50, who now join the other two age groups in falling to pre - 1975 wage levels.

In this situation, which we expect will never be reversed, the return of working - class action in defense of wages is certain. Naturally this trend should be expected to affect wage - workers internationally (since capitalism is a global economic system and has been since its remote origins in 15th century mercantilism); indeed, we are already witnessing the first and most obvious symptoms with struggles in France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and the United States, to list only a few.

The question naturally arises as to why in Italy, with wages below the European average, the working class still persists in a state of passivity.

This is not a simple question, and the factors are certainly numerous. One may be the strong propensity of Italian families to save, which has enabled them to accumulate a certain reserve that temporarily shelters at least part of the working class from the advancing misery. This is accompanied by a reduction in consumption, with young people “choosing” not to marry or reproduce, and to continue living with their families until age 30 and beyond.

Another factor explaining the Italian working class’s state of passivity may be the persistence of a large stratum of the petty bourgeoisie, which dampens the contrasts between proletariat and bourgeoisie, with its myriad ties that give the social environment an inter - class appearance. The fabric of small businesses, the majority struggling to survive the crisis, assures (beyond a difficulty in organizing and struggling of course) on the one hand low and precarious wages, and on the other hand - until the class struggle re - explodes - the subservience of employees to their employers’ paternalism.

There is a third factor to reflect on. In France and to some extent in Britain, the categories that have gone on strike the most in recent months and years are workers in schools, healthcare, transport, shipping ports and, for France in particular, the petrochemical sector. In order to obtain wage increases, French petrochemical workers in November went on strike for 20 consecutive days, led by one of the pugnacious trade federations of the CGT, which is instead majority collaborationist.

All of the above employment categories in Italy are subject to the anti - strike legislation, Law 146 of 1990, amended in 2000 by the D’Alema government. This law was invoked by the regime unions (CGIL, CISL and UIL) to stop in those categories - and not only in those categories - the advance of rank and file unionism, which rightly distinguished itself by promoting numerous strikes.

By virtue of that law, over time amended in a further restrictive sense, a large section of the working class - the same categories that are the protagonists of the ongoing struggles in France - can carry out strikes no longer than 24 hours, and in rare exceptions 48 hours. In addition to this, the strike must be announced well in advance. It cannot be decided, for example, by a workplace assembly. In addition, a certain amount of time, on average two weeks, must pass between strikes.

This law does not affect only state employees, as is mistakenly believed, but all workers, even employees of private companies, who find themselves working in a sector that falls under the so - called “essential public services”. For example, cafeteria attendants, cleaners, maintenance workers, gardeners, perhaps even employees of a cooperative, operating within a hospital.

In fact, in Italy, the freedom to strike for a substantial portion of workers is denied by a fascist law passed under a democratic regime, led by a leftist government, and desired by the regime’s unions.

Thus, on closer inspection, Landini, in inviting Meloni to the CGIL Congress, performs an act fully consistent with the trade union political path of the CGIL reconstituted “from above” at the end of World War II. To justify himself he referred to the work of Bruno Trentin, General Secretary of the CGIL, from 1988 - 94 and previously General Secretary of Fiom, from 1962 - 77. He was the one who, two years after he had cashed in the law against strikes and against the rank and file unions, signed the agreement to finish dismantling the escalator and start the so - called “income policy”. In Florence, he received a punch in the face for this by a worker and then had to be protected by the police as he tried to speak from the stage under a shower of bolts.

Landini is a mournful, washed - out extra leading the barrow and carrying the coffin of regime unionism to its sad fate. For we know that the working class, driven by material conditions, will return to its struggle by breaking every constraint, including legislative ones, against all class repression. We wrote about this in the following issue of Il Partito Comunista, following the example of the strikes of March 1943, at the height of fascism.