We Want Everything

by Nanni Balestrini

  Monday May 19 the forklift drivers strike again for the whole first shift. The workers break out of their teams and get workshop meetings going. The foremen’s proposal to send a delegation of workers to the management for discussions is rejected. The forklift drivers reply that they’d be more comfortable if Fiat sent its representatives to the workers’ meetings. In the meetings the workers decide: The most important thing is the wage claim.

  What is the worker’s wage. I never read my pay packet because I didn’t give a shit about it. But the things the boss divides the worker’s wage into are written on the pay packet. Above all he divides it into two parts. The first part, which is the base pay, corresponds to the hours that the worker spends in the factory. This, which should be the whole wage, is actually very low, it’s never enough for a worker’s minimum living expenses. Then there’s the other part of the wage, the so-called variable part. There can be all kinds of components in the variable part: productivity bonuses, bonuses for diligence, piecework, various loadings and so on.

  All of these components tie the worker’s wage to production for the boss. The piece rate, for example, is the pay for the number of units the worker produces. So that the worker has to stay on his toes and follow the foremen’s orders, because they determine this variable part of his wage, which is absolutely indispensable to him for living. And this lets the boss maintain political control of the working class. To make the working class accept collaborating in their own exploitation. And this is why, when we ask for increases in our base pay, the bosses and the unions always offer increases in the variable part.

  Because the more the bosses pay us this way, the more the worker’s wage is tied to productivity, and the more the bosses’ political control increases. Although with piecework we can get back at the bosses by autolimitation, which is when a worker makes fewer units than he should. When the worker makes more units, the boss gets more in the exchange than he gives back to the worker. But with autolimitation, the small amount of money that the worker misses out on is exchanged for many fewer units for the boss, who therefore loses out more.

  This variable part of the wage is what pays for the varying amounts of labour the worker supplies. Then there’s the so-called vertical structure of wages, which is the difference in wages between one worker and another depending on the kind of work he does. It’s the system of grades and categories, and the other means that the bosses use to divide workers among themselves. Job allowances, merit increases, over-award payments, performance evaluation, all the way to primitive methods such as off-the-books payments and black work. All of this pays for the different quality of labour supplied by the worker.

  But this idea, that the kinds of labour a worker does have different value, that he is paid more or less than another worker, is a completely capitalist invention. The bosses invented it to have another instrument of political control of the working class. Let’s not forget that the Party and the unions support this capitalist invention. They accept that the money a worker gets should be based on the different quality of the work he does.

  All these differences in pay function for the boss as a constant form of blackmail of the worker: if you want a grade, if you want to get ahead, you have to be good, not stir things up, not go on strike. And it’s useful for dividing workers during struggles, because then everyone makes different claims according to their grading and category, and so they fight divided. And the boss can always find a helpful union official to sign off on the various increases and percentages for the different grades and categories.

  Then there’s the matter of working hours. Eight hours of work, if not nine or ten, that destroy the worker completely. So not much energy is left for him to communicate with other workers and organise politically. Why do the bosses want to keep working hours so long? First of all, to keep political control outside the factory as well. The question of productivity comes second. But today workers are refusing work, they want shorter working hours so they can organise themselves politically.

  And finally the regulations, the division of the workforce into two sectors by the boss. Blue-collar workers on one side, clerical and technical staff on the other. For example, the regulations for sick leave are all worked out to force labour on the worker. If he is absent for three days the worker actually loses his whole wage. This doesn’t happen under the clerical and technical employees’ regulations. This is worked out precisely to prevent the worker staying at home when he doesn’t feel like working.

  But the workers’ only objectives are their economic and material needs, what they need to live, and they don’t give a shit about the bosses’ needs, about the productivity that decides the degree to which those needs are satisfied. So it’s clear that the political problem is to attack all the tools of political control that the boss holds and that he uses to bind the working class and force us to serve his productive ends and to take part in our own exploitation. The workers’ weapon for fighting this tool is the refusal of the wage as compensation for the quantity and quality of work. It is therefore the refusal of the link between the wage and production. It’s the demand for a wage that is no longer fixed by production for the bosses, but by the material needs of the workers. That is: Equal increases in the base wage for everyone. Material incentives such as piece rates, categories and so on are only the worker participating in his own exploitation.

  And who has the pimp’s job of negotiating with the bosses for a few more lire for the worker in exchange for new tools of political control? It’s the union. And it then becomes itself a tool of political control over the working class. Fighting for its economic and therefore political objectives, the working class always ends up clashing with the union. Because when workers no longer want to give the boss more political control in return for an economic increase, then the union that has the pimp’s role of negotiating this exchange is put out of the game by the workers.

  From here therefore the working-class need for a guaranteed wage not linked to productivity. From here the working-class need for increases in base pay without waiting for contract negotiations. From here the working-class need for a 40-hour week, 36 for shift workers, paid at 48 now. From here the working-class need for parity in the awards now. For the simple act of going into the factory hell: We want a guaranteed minimum wage of 120,000 lire a month:

  Because we need this money to live in this shitty society. Because we no longer want the piece rates to have us by the throat. Because we want to eliminate the divisions between workers invented by the boss. Because we want to be united so we can fight better. Because then we can more easily refuse the boss’s hours. Because more money in base pay means a greater possibility of struggle. We want 40 hours, 36 for shift workers, paid at 48 now:

  Because we don’t want to spend half our lives in a factory. Because work is bad for you. Because we want more time to organise ourselves politically. We want the same regulations for blue-collar and white-collar workers now:

  Because we want a month’s holidays. Because we want to carry out the struggle against the boss as workers and technicians together. Because we want to stay at home without losing our whole wage when we just can’t work any more.

  Around 11.30am on Monday 19 the forklift drivers at Mirafiori North contacted the comrades at South. Half an hour later the forklift drivers at Mirafiori South stopped work until 2.30pm. On the second shift another two-hour strike in support of the 50 lire. If they offer 50 we’ll ask for 70, they say. The union schedules a forklift drivers strike for the next day, two hours per shift at the start of the shifts. The workers strike for three on the first shift and the same on the second. On Wednesday 21 the bosses end the strike in the first shift after six hours. But before the end the crane-drivers leave, stopping for two hours over the question of categories and halting resupply of parts to the assembly lines.

  On Thursday May 22 the forklift and crane drivers’ picket spreads to the first fixed sections. The workers from the Major Presses join the struggl
e. The union announces a strike of two hours per shift. The first shift’s strike from 10 to 12 starts with a march in the factory that pulls workers who are still working off the machines. Fiat’s attempt to make up the backlog created by these first strikes fails. In the morning the supervisors try to push the 124 line from 600 to 641 units. The workers refuse to start work. The management and the internal commission convince them to start but they have to forget about the 41 extra units.

  At 2.30pm on that same Thursday 22 the second shift goes into the Major Presses but can’t do much because the forklift drivers’ strike is holding up the supply of parts. After an hour the two-hour strike starts as scheduled. At this point a motion to strike from 9.30pm to 11pm, when supplies for the forklift drivers would arrive, is passed. A manager comes by and asks the workers what they want, but no one wants anything. The manager concludes that they don’t know. The internal commission arrives hot on the manager’s heels saying that the Press workers shouldn’t do what the forklift drivers are doing, striking on their own. That it hurts all of Fiat, and it could go to a lock-out.

  The union officials had proposed a stop-work from three until five for the third shift. But the workers decide all together to stop from two until seven. On Friday 23 the first shift in the Presses does the two hours scheduled by the union and after discussion they decide to extend the strike until 2.30pm. Meanwhile the workers on the assembly lines take up their comrades’ invitation to join the struggle. From that day no more 124s or 125s come out of Mirafiori, and only a few 600s and 850s. Almost 12,000 workers are on strike. On Saturday 24 the union decides it’s not worth striking because there’s only one shift. There’s work, but with autolimitation of production: only 1300 units come out instead of the normal 3500.

  In the meetings and discussions they say: Our aim isn’t just 50 lire, even if it would make us comfortable, our aim is a permanent workers organisation that can fight the boss at every moment. Fuck democracy, there’s been democracy for 25 years and for 25 years we’ve been getting it in the arse. We must organise ourselves, we are the unions, no army is stronger than the working class united and organised. The struggle continues in the following days, with more marches and meetings in the sections, spreading spontaneously to the Medium and Small Presses. Here the workers call the strikes autonomously, not the union. Why does this strike go on for days and days and spread like wildfire? What do the workers of Fiat want?

  For the first time the workers of Fiat aren’t acting for particular claims made by the union, such as for the line delegate. Instead they refuse en masse the organisation of work in the factory, deciding for themselves. For 80, 90, 100 thousand lire a month they work at a murderous rate, unbearable, which the boss increases constantly. In fact in the 124 body workshop they made 320 vehicles a day at the beginning of 1968, 360 in October, 380 after Avola.19 Now the bosses are pushing for 430 and are only accepting less because of the struggle. These increases are only possible through the acceleration of the assembly line. But the workers of Fiat don’t want to know any more about it, they want to decide for themselves how much they work.

  They all want a guaranteed wage that will let them live and they don’t give a shit about merit increases, increases in the percentage, variables etc. That is, all the mechanisms that the bosses, with the unions, have invented to tie wages more tightly to exploitation and to divide workers among themselves. They don’t give a shit about the line delegate that the union wants them to fight for. The line delegate is a type of controller who has to police the agreements over work rates, that is, over the intensity of exploitation. But this is precisely what the workers are refusing. It’s a struggle against the work rates that the workers want.

  But now the bosses need the line delegates. They want them present at the negotiations, quick, and when the contracts are signed. They need them to assure, permanently, democratic control over the workers and their political actions. But now the workers of Fiat have decided to bring forward the fight between the bosses and the union that happens when the contracts expire. Contracts that would stop the struggle for three years and advance the bosses’ plans. All of this is discussed and decided by the Fiat workers in section meetings. During working hours the workers try to build their own autonomous organisation for the first time.

  What have the unions done up to now? They’ve tried to extinguish the struggles or to isolate them. In the Medium and Small Presses and in the Mechanical workshops they said the wildcat strike was illegal: We won’t negotiate if you do it. They said that non-union strikes were sabotage. They said that if big wage increases were won they’d be absorbed into the national contract. But this isn’t true because at that time new agreements were signed at Nebiolo and Olivetti that excluded absorption of the increases.

  They distorted the reality of the struggle by spreading rumours, for example that the struggle at the Presses was over, but that wasn’t true. Saying that if production was damaged by linking the struggles, that is, by the different sections striking for two hours and coordinating their actions to stop production, Fiat would institute a lockout.

  They spread rumours that if the lines were still closed the following week Fiat would stand the workers down. They bluffed about the negotiations, saying that they’d achieved certain results, which they hadn’t. They spread the idea that it was necessary to avoid recreating the atmosphere of the 1950s at Fiat, the witch hunts and sackings of the most active workers.

  They said there was the risk of ending up with a separate early contract at Fiat, and so destroying unity in the sector, but that is exactly what they had always done. Workers: if the unions have continued to isolate and damp down the struggle, if all the newspapers of whichever party don’t report what is really happening at Fiat, the workers’ watchword must be: everybody out at Fiat. To the threats of suspension the workers of Mirafiori respond: everybody out at Fiat.

  Tuesday May 27: Strike for eight hours. A march started inside the factory and wound through workshops 5, 7, 13 shouting: Potere operaio. Carrying signs that say: Less work, more pay. The march started with a meeting of workers who had just entered the factory. During the meeting it was decided that we wanted: a rise of 50 lire for everybody plus 80 lire for the night shift on five weeks. Attack on the production schedules. The union must become the instrument for realising the workers’ decisions.

  Strikes called by the workers in internal assemblies: Workshop 13, first and second shift. Workshop 1, first shift 4 hours, second shift 4 hours. Workshop 3, first shift 4 hours, second shift 4 hours. Strikes called by the unions: Maintenance, first shift 2 hours, second shift 2 hours. Workshop 5, first shift 4 hours, declared at 2 hours. Second shift 8 hours, declared at 2 hours. The day’s production fell to minimum levels.

  Newsheet at gates 15 and 17, Press workshops: Fiat is mocking us with an offer of 7 lire. The union is mocking us by saying that Fiat is offering 36.30 lire. Let’s see about this 36.30 lire. We’ve already got 21.50, the meal agreement from last month. 9.80 is tied to piecework so we’d have to sweat it out day by day. Plus 5, the 5 lire that the management has increased to 7 with great effort. We won’t sell ourselves for 7 lire. The struggle continues. The Mechanical workshops and the lines are about to join the struggle. Newsheet at gates 18 and 20, Mechanical workshops: The struggle at the Presses and Maintenance continues. It needs to be extended to the Mechanical workshops and the lines. We must demand category two for everyone, including those on the Mechanical lines. We have to realise workers’ control over the schedules and the number of cars we work on.

  Newsheets on the struggle passed out at gates 1 and 2 of the lines: The strike at the Presses continues, don’t believe the rumours spread by the bosses. Presses and Maintenance can’t strike on their own but ask for your cooperation. Because the problems of the struggle are the same: Control over production. Advancement of category for everyone. How can we join the struggle with the Presses and Maintenance? By stopping the processes that are still functioning. Wednesday 28
May: On the body workshop lines the workers stopped, attempting a march. The section head arrived and stopped them.

  Thursday 29 May: A young southern worker tried to go in with a sign. The guards stopped him and it set off a scuffle. On the second shift a group of 80 or so workers from the body workshop meet at the end of the lines straight after clocking on and march to hold up the 500 line, the only one that had kept running at full speed for the previous two days. At this point supervisors and the union intervened in a joint action that reduced the march to about 15 workers. These workers shrugged them off, they continued going about among the other workers discussing and bit by bit the march regroups, completely stopping production. Not a single car comes out of Fiat.

  Seventh chapter The comrades

  As I came out of the Fiat gate after I’d escaped the clutches of the guards, I couldn’t wait to find the other comrades, either the comrades I’d been in the struggle with inside or the students who I’d made and handed out leaflets with at the entrance. I thought about things while I was heading to the bar to meet up with the comrades. Things I had thought about at other times, but this time I felt I was coming to the full conclusion.

  I’d had all kinds of work in my life. Construction worker, porter, dishwasher in a restaurant, I’d been a labourer and a student, which is also a job. I’d worked at Alemagna, at Magneti Marelli, at Ideal Standard. And now I’d been at Fiat, at this Fiat that was a myth, because of all the money that they said you made there. And I had really understood something. That with work you could only live, and live poorly, as a worker, as someone who is exploited. The free time in your day is taken away, and all of your energy. You eat poorly. You are forced to get up at an impossible hour, depending on which section you’re in or what work you do. I understood that work is exploitation and nothing more.