Interview with Christian Ferrari: “Abstention in referendums? No rights were gained by staying at home”

Christian Ferrari, member of the National Secretariat of the CGIL: the second highest office of the State, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa , who publicly declares: “I will campaign for abstention ” in the referendums of June 8 and 9. The leaders of the right who exalt the political choice of not voting. What kind of democracy is this and why are we afraid of these referendums? In answering, I would first like to address the citizens, reminding them of an indisputable historical truth: no right at work has ever been achieved, in our country, by staying at home, starting with the Workers' Statute . Social advances have always come only thanks to mobilization, struggle, and democratic participation. More generally, on the idea of ​​democracy, I believe there is a clear distinction between those who think that we should limit ourselves to voting for a single man or woman in command once every five years, leaving free rein to the driver, and those - like us - who believe that democracy should be nurtured every day with the protagonism of workers, pensioners, and retirees who, through intermediate bodies and - when the opportunity arises - also through direct democracy, can concretely influence the political and economic choices that affect their prospects and those of the new generations. Furthermore, I frankly believe that on the part of several members of the ruling class there is a sort of disconnect from reality. They continue to flaunt completely imaginary records, while the industrial and social crisis rage, and while workers, pensioners and young people are suffering a brutal impoverishment due to a profit-driven inflation that has not yet been recovered.

The malcontents also live in the center-left. We know about Calenda and Renzi, but even within the PD there is an anti-Schlein rebellion. The leitmotif is always the same: the Democratic Party's campaign on the referendums is a gift to the right. Polls show that the vast majority of PD voters who say they want to go to the polls intend to vote yes to all five referendums . With lower percentages, but still clearly in the majority, voters of the center-right parties are also in favor of the merits of the questions on work. The same goes for the referendum on citizenship, for which there is much more coldness on the right, but even on this - if we consider all voters - the absolute majority of those interviewed supports the need to finally provide our country with a civil law on citizenship. We are addressing everyone. Every voter has an unmissable opportunity: becoming a member of parliament for a day and - without delegating anyone, by putting a cross on the Yes on the ballot - can help Italian and foreign workers gain, from the next day, fundamental rights, giving them back strength, dignity and freedom, which is first and foremost freedom from need, insecurity and exploitation.

To stay with the Dems, the hypercriticals of the Secretary maintain, more or less explicitly, that no matter what happens, Elly Schlein will hand herself over to Landini. This is a very politicized way of looking at reality, which completely ignores the merits of the problems that real people care about. No one gives themselves up to anyone. Much more simply, the supporters of the referendum want: the reinstatement of Article 18 to say no to illegitimate dismissals in companies with more than 15 employees; the elimination of the maximum ceiling of only six months' salary for compensation to those who are unfairly dismissed in companies with fewer than 16 employees; the reintroduction of reasons for fixed-term contracts, in order to put a stop to widespread precariousness; the introduction of the responsibility of the contracting company for accidents that occur along the procurement chain, with the aim of making work safer; the halving from 10 to 5 years of the time of legal residency to obtain citizenship for those who live, study and work regularly in Italy. In essence, we want to put stable, secure, well-paid work back at the center. We must never forget that over half a million girls and boys, in just over ten years, have left our country to seek more dignified employment abroad. To get an idea of ​​the magnitude of the phenomenon, it is as if a city the size of Genoa - entirely populated by young people - had completely disappeared from the map of Italy. We are accused of waging an ideological and rearguard battle, but the opposite is true: our battle is very concrete and is entirely aimed at the future and at new generations. If we do not stop this real hemorrhage of intelligence and hope, the economic, social and democratic prospects of our country will be increasingly bleak. And to do so, a decisive first step is precisely to change labor legislation, combating a precariousness that, more and more often, from work becomes existential. This is the real emergency to face and resolve, rather than the non-existent invasions to defend ourselves from. And also in this sense, recognizing citizenship to those born, study and work in Italy is fundamental.

Citizenship, work, social rights and, to go beyond the referendum questions, a peace in justice, to use the words of Pope Francis, or a “disarmed” and “disarming” peace, in the words of his successor Leo XIV : if it does not start from these issues and these battles, can the left still define itself as such? This referendum has a scope that goes beyond the content of the individual questions, which obviously remains very important. The goal is to radically change a development model that is now unsustainable, both socially and economically, and from an environmental point of view. And the situation would worsen irremediably if the project to transform the European production and industrial model into a war economy were to become reality. This choice, moreover, would fundamentally contradict the green deal strategy and the fight against climate change, which represents the main threat to the very survival of the human species. A danger that does not disappear just because Donald Trump decided so, advised by the deniers he surrounded himself with. We believe that we need to go in a completely different direction and the words of both Pope Francis and Pope Leo have explained it as well as possible. We need to disarm the world and make peace possible again. Starting from an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and Gaza , where a horrible medieval-style siege is taking place, with the Palestinian population dying not only under the bombs, but also from hunger, thirst, disease. This is the perspective for which the Left must fight, if it does not want to lose the sense of its historical function and if it wants to play a role in the time in which we are given to live. We must build an Italian and European society founded on peace, on social justice, on public and universal welfare, on quality and well-paid work. This is, first and foremost, the task of the Left.

The Prime Minister praises the results achieved by her government in the economy and on employment. We are now at 26 consecutive months of decline in industrial production. GDP has returned to "point zero ". Italian wages have lost 9% between 2008 and 2024, and are among the lowest in Europe. The alleged "new" employment is all concentrated on the over 50s: they are not new jobs, they are workers forced to endure the extension of the retirement age determined by the Monti-Fornero law which - even in this legislature, and despite the solemn commitments of the electoral campaign - not only will not be cancelled, but is actually worsened. The funding of the National Health Service in relation to GDP is reaching the lowest level ever. Public administration, Education, Research, Regions and Local Authorities are suffering very heavy linear cuts. Social inequalities and territorial gaps are exploding. These are real data, and cannot be cancelled by any propaganda. Ultimately, the alternative that Italians will face on June 8 and 9 is quite simple: if they believe that "everything is fine, Madame la Marchesa" , they can vote No to leave everything as it is. If, on the other hand, they think that things in our country are not going well at all and that it is necessary to change them profoundly, then they have an extraordinary opportunity at hand to do so: to vote Yes to all five questions, determining an immediate and tangible result from the following day for millions of people; but, above all, clearly indicating a radically alternative direction compared to the economic and social policies of recent decades.

FROM

Umberto DeGiovanniangeli