Fumarola re-elected Cisl secretary: 'No lessons' from CGIL. And to the government: 'Let's get down to facts'.
"It is necessary to promote a new expansive income policy that increases wages and pensions, launches a real industrial strategy
3' min read
3' min read
Daniela Fumarola was re-elected general secretary of the CISL. At the end of the 20th National Congress, the General Council unanimously confirmed her at the head of the union in Via Po for four years. The election was greeted by a long applause from the audience, immediately followed by Fumarola's thanks.
Public contracts and union splits
"No. We don't accept lessons, not even on public contracts, from those who for years, with other governments, signed zero-argument agreements without batting an eyelid". Thus the leader of the Cisl, Daniela Fumarola, concluding the 20th confederal congress and referring to the union splits, especially with the CGIL, on the renewal of public contracts.
Appeal to the government for concrete action
'To the government,' said the reconfirmed CISL secretary, 'we say: let us move immediately from intentions to action. The highroad is the one leading to a national contract for development, social sustainability and labour that commits the executive and social partners to a programme on shared objectives. The hope is that this strategy will be supported by a broad coalition. It is no longer time for alibis or prejudices. Those who back out today assume the responsibility of excluding themselves from a path founded on the ethics of cooperation'.
Alliance building and trade union unity
The Cisl believes in 'the value, for us inalienable, of trade union pluralism'. But Fumarola says to 'our friends from CGIL and UIL: let us work together, let us build concrete alliances on content. Let us choose a shared method, made of confrontation on merit and mutual respect. The Cisl, he said, is ready to play its part for a new season of united relations, but within a field of merit and mutual respect. It is ready to play its part for a new season of unitary relations, but within a well-defined reformist field. A unity cast down from above, made up only of proclamations or acronyms placed side by side in the square without a real common project, is of no use to workers, pensioners or the country. We will not raise unitary flags just for the archives of an immobile future. Rather, we want to fill them with substance, with serious and common proposals.
Dialogue, Responsibility and Trade Union Actions
"We are on the path of dialogue and responsibility. We invite all social partners,' said Fumarola, 'to set out with us on this path, to build a reformist front together. We are waiting for them here, ready to join forces. And,' he adds, 'we know just as well to go our own way if necessary, when we feel that protesting alone is more consistent with the interests of the workers we represent. It is not arrogance, it is loyalty to our idea of a union: an organisation founded on autonomy from politics, without friendly governments, solidly reformist, deeply imbued with the logic according to which conquests are obtained step by step, with determination. A 'useful' union that is not content but wants results for the people it represents. A trade union that does not put up ideological walls but always seeks glimmers of negotiation, without, of course, renouncing mobilisation, conflict, and strike, when the thread of dialogue falls and interlocution breaks down. We have charted a course and we will not delay in following it,' the CISL leader emphasised.
