The Confederazione dei Comitati di Base (Cobas) is a
rank and file
Rank and file may refer to:
*A military term relating to the horizontal "ranks" (rows) and vertical "files" (columns) of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the officers
*A term derived from the above used to refer to enlisted troops, as oppose ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. It was formed in the late 1980s by members who were dissatisfied with the leadership of the three main Italian confederations (
CGIL
The Italian General Confederation of Labour (; CGIL) is a national trade union based in Italy. It was formed by agreement between socialists, communists, and Christian democrats in the "Pact of Rome" of June 1944. In 1950, socialists and Christi ...
,
CISL and
UIL
The Uil ( kk, Ойыл, translit=Oyyl; russian: Уил, translit=Uil) is a river of western Kazakhstan. It discharges into the Lake Aktobe
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any ...
). Many of its members see it as
syndicalist
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of pro ...
, but it has also courted the
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
group, the
League for the Fifth International
The League for the Fifth International (L5I) is an international grouping of revolutionary Trotskyist organisations around a common programme and perspectives.
History
L5I was founded as the Movement for a Revolutionary Communist Internationa ...
with whom it shared a platform at the anti-G8 protests in
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, ...
in 2007.
Cobas regard themselves as
rank and file
Rank and file may refer to:
*A military term relating to the horizontal "ranks" (rows) and vertical "files" (columns) of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the officers
*A term derived from the above used to refer to enlisted troops, as oppose ...
unions in contrast to the traditional, hierarchical unions that impose compromises on their members.
[Gall (1995) quotation: ] Comparable "rank and file" labor unions exist in France: the
Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU), and the
Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques
The Solidaires or Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD) is a French group of trade unions.
Political position
They tend to favor progressive or even radical views and work with the alter-globalization or anti-globalization movement.
The ...
(SUD) and their confederation in the
Group of 10.
[Gamble (2007) p.209]
History
The
factory councils
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. The ...
became more and more popular during the 1970s, and their co-existence with the traditional unions increased unionization. In 1978, the mainstream unions recentralised power to prevent rank-and-file practices and rules outside of their control.
Changing industrial relations in Europe By Anthony Ferner, Richard Hyman
1998) p.471
Notes
References
* Gall, Gregor (1995
''The Emergence of a Rank and File Movement: the Comitati di Base in the Italian Worker's Movement''
in ''Capital & Class
''Capital & Class'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the fields of politics and economics, especially concerning Marxism and critical theories like feminism, environmentalism, poststructuralism, along with other radical and i ...
''
*Gamble, Andrew (2007
''Labour, the state, social movements and the challenge of neo-liberal globalisation''
Manchester University Press
*Wright, Steve (1999
''Radical Unions in Italy''
in ''Direct Action'' (journal of the Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines gener ...
in Australia), #171, Summer 1999-2000.
Further reading
*
*Patrick* OCL Caen (200
''SUD: viaggio all'interno del nuovo sindacalismo''
in ''Sindacalismo di Base'' n.12
External links
Official site
- Italian only
National trade union centers of Italy
Trade unions established in the 1980s
{{Italy-org-stub