Presentation of the Italian group (Bologna) : Precari Nati

"27 July 2000

"The name of our group is WORKER NET, we publish a review called Precari Nati and several factory newspapers.

The aim of the WORKER NET is to support, when they exist, worker autonomous groups and workers on strike.

The Worker Net isn't an organisation in a classical sense, but its an instrument and a place to link all workers who fight for worker autonomy.

The Worker Net isn't a vanguard because the part of the class in struggle is the real vanguard.

The worker movement will decide on his own organisation in class struggle.

We are a group of communist workers that try to give a communist point of view to the class struggle. For this reason we support strikes, sabotage on work, absenteeism and the refuse of union bureaucracy.

For us it's important that a workers group looks for theoretical instruments to analyse the capitalist production system (i.e. capitalist crisis) and the class composition (i.e. presence of immigrants in the workplaces). On the other side we try to analyse the proletarian movement development during the history, his spontaneous and organised manifestations.

We aren't interested to join a specific ideology, but to know all theoretical currents that have had an influence for the worker autonomy. For this reasons we utilise either the council communism (mostly the theories of Paul Mattick) or the "italian operaism" (like Quaderni Rossi) or other experiences like Solidarity in Great Britain, Correspondence of Glaberman in the USA or ICO and Socialisme ou Barbarie in France.

We don't believe in a photocopy of these experiences or groups, they are historical.

We have to understand the present without forget wich are the links with the revolutionary experiences in the past.

We consider Marx theories as a start point and not as an end point. "These groups are Marxist because there has not been yet developed a social science superior to that originated by Marx, and because the Marxian principles of scientific research still are the most realistic and allow incorporation of new experiences growing out of continuing capitalistic development. Marxism is not conceived as a closed system, but as the present state of a growing social science capable of serving as a theory of the practical class struggle of the workers." (P. Mattick, "I comunisti dei consigli", 1939)

We give importance to worker inquire.

On one hand on our review and during the assemblies, the workers write and speak about their conditions to develop an auto-identification of class.

On the other hand we study the work organisation and the different contractual forms. We do this because when a worker knows his role in the organisation of work, he knows also the weak points of capital, and this is useful to show the scientific exploitation of capital today, without populist and ideological slogans.

We are mostly present in the industrial sector (metal, chemical and food industry), and we think that it's important to have an intervention in these sectors that live the proletarisation.

In Italy the age of the working class is changing: more and more youths are present, it's growing up a new working class, and for the major part they have casual contracts. This sector has broken with the old organisations. We have an intervention in this sector.

The comrades of the redaction of the review are ca 10 (all factory workers). The Net is composed by ca 40 workers, someone is organised in autonomous collective inside some factories. All comrades are out from parties and unions.

We have a weekly meeting where we speak about what is going on in the factories and an other meeting to discuss a theoretical plan and the review.

We give more attention to the territory of our town. It doesn't mean that we aren't interested to the international working class, but we think that if a group has an intervention in the class, it must have a knowledge of the reality where the militants do their activity.

We publish article of foreign groups, but the review is diffused in Bologna.

We have a lot of contacts in Italy, but there isn't any other group like ours.

We have some international discussion with some groups. We have produced with them some publications and common materials. With Opel workers in Saragoza, Spain, we are writing a pamphlet on "team work" and we have produced a leaflet distributed in Bologna and Saragoza for two connected factory.

With Wild Cat in Germany, Mouvement Communiste in France and Aufheben in Great Britain we have done a pamphlet called Stop the clock! Critiques of the new social workhouse, on working time and basic income claim in Europe. The English comrades have published the pamphlet.

Now we are taking part to a European project of enquire on Call Centres sector with Kolinko and KPL in Germany, Aufheben and Undercurrent in Great Britain, because the call centres are a service organised like an industrial work.