Despite the triumphalist tones of the Meloni government, the forecast for next year is a serious worsening of all economic indices. There is an industrial crisis that has already produced more than 50 million hours of cash integration and that is destined to crunch on the Italian production system due to two factors that are difficult to circumvent: the tariff policy repeatedly announced by Trump (+20% on European products) and the weight of the additional costs of energy, which will continue to weigh on the entire economic system and on the manufacturing sector in particular. If to this is added the diktat of the new American president to raise up to 5% of GDP the defense expenditures of European countries, with easily imaginable effects on the public budgets of the EU states, the prospects become alarming.
2025, therefore, will most likely be a year of strong industrial crisis for Italy and for the whole of Europe. In the increasingly heated international competition, the EU countries have arrived in strong oxygen debt compared to both China and the US and are lagging behind in all the leading sectors of the production system, starting with the automotive sector. For decades they have relied on low-wage policy and the export economy, but today that exporting has become much more complicated and that markets are in sharp contraction do not have many ways out.
Draghi has long proposed his recipe: to strengthen European technocracy by majority voting and investing in security, starting with armaments, and in strategic sectors. It is the idea that political and authoritarian capitalism is needed, that overcomes the rule of law and promotes a strong interweaving between large enterprise and state bodies, and prepares the EU to fulfill the role of great power. A doctrine that seems to inspire the whole West and that in Washington takes the form of the DOGE, the new Department for Administrative Efficiency, led by Musk and created by Trump, to put the whole public administration under the control of the large private company.
Draghi’s proposal is affected by the decision to bind itself to the West’s chariot, the will of the US and the dynamics of the strongest European economies, which is exactly the choice that has condemned our country to a condition of subordination. In this proposal there is an undercontivity that is not made explicit, namely that the only way to withstand the very strong international competitiveness is once again the compression of wages and the privatization of everything that can be taken from the public economy.
This proposal, for now the only organically formulated on a continental scale, which collects the approval not only of the European Commission but also of the Meloni government, is destined to clash with numerous unknowns. First, the effects of the new US leadership, which portends a less friendly relationship than in the past with European countries and the desire to establish relations with individual states rather than the EU. Then the political instability that is affecting the major members of the EU itself, Germany and France, which could lead to a real crisis of continental balances. And finally, but certainly not least, the effects of the social crisis that Draghi’s recipes are destined to produce and that could open up new scenarios.
The only certain data of this direction of travel in which we are channeled are the worsening of living conditions, the increase in social inequalities and the race to rearmament, with the growing involvement of our country within the scenarios of war. Meloni has just returned from a summit in Lapland in which she shared the renewed Italian interest in Africa and it is no coincidence that the military leaders of our army foreshadow the opening of new war scenarios on that continent.
There is no doubt that the crisis in which we are falling is not comparable to those we have experienced in the recent past. Its global character and the very strong interweaving with the shredding in pieces in which we have been immersed for two years is undeniable. The restructuring that is affecting the continental production system is therefore not dictated only by the needs of economic competition but also responds to geopolitical calculations and a logic of war. The saturation of world markets has ignited unlimited competition on a global scale and this is pushing the planet towards the proliferation of conflicts. The race to rearmament responds precisely to this dynamic: to invest surplus capital in a protected sector such as defense, where resources are ensured by state budgets, and support their army in the global clash.
In this situation, two other factors are moving: the repression of dissent and the strengthening of patriotic propaganda, both indispensable to guarantee a compactness of the internal front, while new “adventures” are being prepared to guarantee the interests of large Italian and European companies. While on the first front the new repressive laws operate such as the bill 1660, the under control of the judiciary, the projects of new constitutional reforms, the recurrent idea of making the law on strikes even more restrictive, the second front, that of propaganda, sweeps across the field and invests the world of culture, school, entertainment and private freedoms. A bad wind of cultural restoration blows hard in our country and shows its true face in the support that the Meloni government continues to give to Netanyahu.
Is there a way out of this blacker and darker future? And what role can our trade union organization play in reversing course?
The way out is a change of perspective, focus on the domestic market and the revival of consumption, the reindustrialization of the country, however, aimed not at exports or even war but at the growth of the well-being of our population. We must not conquer the markets but give an answer to the many difficulties of our country, from the prevention of natural disasters to public health, from the enhancement of our landscape and the many historical and cultural resources to the modernization of the railway transport system that in some regions almost does not exist, from the relaunch of social housing to the safety of so much of our public real estate system. And open us to economic exchange with all countries that are willing to do so on an equal footing, looking first of all south and on the shores of the Mediterranean
But the first point of this program, which today has no interlocutors in Parliament, is the vital battle to raise wages. Without a strong recovery in wages, pensions and social safety nets themselves, which have become for many now the only source of survival, there is no way to relaunch consumption and domestic market and thus trigger a change of gear.
Precisely on the salary, therefore, the crucial game of 2025 is played. It applies to public workers, where in the central functions there has already been a very heavy tear of the CISL and autonomous syndicalism that they have decided to sign down alone. It applies to local public transport workers, who have recently gone on massive and have been mocked by a pre-agreement on the contract that is worth 122 euros at maturity. And it applies to the railway sector where they are preparing to promote more flexibility in exchange for downward wages.
The salary lot actually invests all categories. From the sectors subjected to heavy restructuring, which are in particular those workers, to all the poor categories of services, which are those that in recent years have lost the most in terms of purchasing power, not even being able to take advantage of second-level bargaining. The bosses neglect to recount the fabulous gains of these years, their only concern is that the profit margins seem destined to contract in the coming years. And they run for cover by adopting the usual strategy, making us, for those who work, pay the cost of this umpteenth crisis. This explains downward contracts, the increase in workloads and hourly flexibility, the unwillingness to seriously address the issue of safety at work, the inclusion of new technology for the sole purpose of saving work rather than favoring a strong and generalized reduction in schedules.
A logical thread links the question of wages to the possibility of changing the address that the country has taken. First of all, it is a general question, it concerns all workers and therefore has the potential to be a common factor. It speaks of a very concrete question, the right not to be taken away from other resources by those who have enriched themselves in recent years and have done so by increasing the rate of exploitation. It proposes to invest in domestic well-being and the care of the territory rather than in armaments and conquest of foreign markets. And it alludes to the only way out of the crisis we are experiencing that is not the nightmare of a war scenario.
This is the challenge we face in the coming year and for which all our forces are worth investing.
It is the wish we make to all comrades, friends and friends, brothers and sisters of the Unione Sindacale di Base.
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