GRANDI, ACHILLE

A printer by profession, from 1907 he took part with study and apostolate in the organisation of the nascent Catholic trade union movement. After directing the Labour Union of Como and establishing the Italian Textile Workers’ Union, in 1919 he founded the so-called “white” Confederation, made up of Catholic trade unions. He was one of the founders of the Italian People’s Party, for which he was elected deputy in 1919, 1921 and 1924 in the Como-Sondrio constituency. Having assumed in November 1922 the leadership of the Italian Confederation of Workers, he waged a fierce struggle against the abuses of the Fascist trade union monopoly. He took part in the parliamentary opposition action known as the Aventine Secession. With the suppression of the “white” Confederation by the dictatorship, he returned to his trade as a printer, yet continuing to participate in clandestine anti-Fascist activity, until in July 1943 he was called by the Badoglio government to serve as government commissioner for the Confederation of Agricultural Workers. A convinced supporter of trade union unity, in 1945, after negotiations with the pre-Fascist trade union organisations concluded with the Pact of Rome, he became general secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour, representing the Christian Democratic current. At the same time he founded and directed the Italian Christian Workers’ Associations (v.). A member ex officio of the central executive of Christian Democracy, and a member of the National Consult, he was elected deputy for the Milan constituency to the Constituent Assembly, of which he was also vice-president.