At the beginning of 1995, one part of USI (which was based in the
city of Rome) tried to lead USI into an organization called ARCA-USAE
(linked to a coordination of European unions) together with other
Italian unions, both alternative as well as corporate. The ARCA project
lasted a few years and in the end failed due to internal power
struggles.
The majority of USI at that time objected to joining ARCA, conscious
that this would mean ending the identity of USI and its participation in
the IWA. The part of the union referred to as USI Roma arose as the
result of an internal process that led to a Congress held in Rome in
April 1996 in which they declared their separation from the rest of USI.
The legitimate part of USI held its Congress in Prato Carnico in May of
the same year. The XX IWA Congress (Madrid, December 1996), after
checking the authoritarian practices of the splinter group from the
Congress of Rome, decide to expel them from the IWA, recognizing at the
same time USI which had held its Congress in Prato Carnico, as the only
legitimate section of the IWA in Italy.
Despite all this, the splinter group continued usurping the name USI as
well as IWA, creating serious problems for the legitimate USI-IWA in its
union action (calling strikes, labour conflicts, etc.). The splinter
group, in addition to arbitrarily using our initials, USI-AIT, continued
to have an organization and a way of conducting union activity that can
only be defined as clientelist, corporativist, authoritarian and
oriented at delegating power to the top of the organization (including
at some times supporting the Roman Rifondazione Comunista party in local
elections). All of this clearly has nothing to do with the principles
of anarchosyndicalism and the IWA.
An example of the problems
caused for our union becuase of this unclear situation was when we
called for a strike against the war in Iraq, together with other
alternative unions. USI Red Black Coordination sent a telegram to the
Ministry of Education, Universities and Research saying that USI did not
call any strike. The consequence of this was an enormous confusion
amongst workers, since the Ministry issued a statement that declared the
strike didn’t exist.
Another example are the declarations of the
leaders of the USI Red Black Coordination which announce that they
would vote for the candidates of the party Rifondazione Comunista in the
local elections in Rome.
Therefore we want to inform the
union that participates in the Red Black Coordination with the initials
USI / USI-AIT, that the only USI recognized by the IWA, and therefore
the only one that can legitimately use their initials, is the one who
currently (2010) has its National Secretariat in Via Bologna 28, Genova,
and whose current National Secretary is Guido Barroero, demanding an
immediate end to use both the name IWA / AIT of our international, to
which they don’t belong.
USI-IWA website is http://www.usi-ait.org & http://www.lottadiclasse.it
