“Hot Autumn” Italy’s Factory Councils and Autonomous Workers’ Assemblies, 1970s

Patrick Cuninghame

456 Pages

This chapter examines and analyzes the historical development of workers’ councils within the Italian factory system during the “Long 1968,” based on two rival models: the factory councils and the autonomous workers’ assemblies. Following the 1969 “Hot Autumn” wildcat strike wave, the autonomous workers’ movement aimed to topple the unions from their hegemonic position, while the three Italian union confederations—CGIL,1 CISL,2 and UIL3—attempted to recover their representative power. Conflicts over wage bargaining were used to destabilize the factory system and the capitalist division of labor, thus creating the conditions for workers’ counterpowerinthefactory.Thefactorycouncilsintegratedoftenradically different political positions, but with the shared ultimate objective of restoring the hegemony of the unions as a unitary organizational form while still expressing the will of at least part of the rank and file.

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Ours to Master and to Own
Workers’ Councils from the Commune to the Present
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Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini

Editors

Haymarket Books Chicago, Illinois