SINDACALISMO E SINDACATO

**TRADE UNIONISM and TRADE UNION.** — These are forms of professional organization, which at the present time, in various languages, are usually called: sindacati, syndicats, sindicatos, trade unions, gewerkschaften.

I. LEADING THREAD FOR A HISTORICAL INQUIRY INTO TRADE UNIONISM

Professional associationism is a phenomenon that recurs in the most varied epochs and in countries of the most diverse civilizations. This provides experimental confirmation of the natural tendency toward it as a particular manifestation of the complex social nature of man. It follows that the prohibition of such associationism, proclaimed by the guiding principles of the French Revolution and by the legislations inspired by them, constitutes in history rather an exception than a tradition, and it also follows that such a prohibition must be considered, at least in general, contrary to natural law, excessive, and dangerous. However great the economic, juridical, and political importance of professional associations may be, it is necessary that controls and limits be placed upon them (inasmuch as they have limited aims, even if pursued intensely) by a higher political authority, which safeguards the general interest of the community at a given moment and also in its future projections; and it is especially necessary to curb the anarchic excesses (cf. in Roman law: Lex de collegis restituendis novisque instituendis; Lex Julia, etc.) and also to curb the tendency toward the formation of closed bodies, exclusivist in their privileges without corresponding functions, which are contrary to social progress (cf. the suppressive legislation of the degenerate “arts” of the Middle Ages).

II. EMERGENCE AND MATURATION OF TRADE UNIONISM WITH TEMPORARY SETBACKS — Limiting ourselves to a very rapid outline of the most recent events, it is well known how the artisan guilds, after a period of splendor, went into decline. The decline, already notable in the 18th century, continued thereafter. The economic environment underwent radical transformations both because of the expansion and shifting of principal economic, productive, and commercial centers—owing in particular to the discovery of the Americas and the formation of great colonial empires—and because of a marked concentration of capital; and also because of the rapid and intense affirmation and development of machinery and, in general, the adoption of new technical means of production following remarkable inventions and discoveries; and because of the gathering of ever larger masses of workers around new industries, in the condition of pure wage labor, together with a growing specialization and division of labor. And, while ever greater freedom in public life was being invoked, the guilds instead became rigidified into closed, privileged bodies without corresponding functions of public utility. Their narrow and backward regulation of productive activity was a serious obstacle to progress. Hence there first came sporadic reform measures, and then others of suppression, culminating in France with Turgot’s Edict (1776) and, after various vicissitudes concerning that Edict, in the celebrated revolutionary decrees of 4 August 1789. On 15 June 1791 the Constituent Assembly went to the extreme of prohibiting any professional association as contrary to the fundamental principles of the Revolution (cf. the law that takes its name from the deputy Le Chapelier).

Even in this excess, French legislation served as a model for several decades for other European countries. In a regime of economic freedom that was practically without limits, with trade unions prohibited and public power absent, individual workers in fact found themselves in a situation little short of servitude, according to a phrase of Leo XIII in the encyclical *Rerum novarum* (1891), and this also because of the undercutting of labor costs by the cheaper labor of women and children. Class struggle thus became entrenched in an environment saturated with social inequalities and deepening every furrow.

The most effective impetus toward a new associationism and protective labor legislation must perhaps be found, at least as far as the working-class environment is concerned, less in political and trade-union doctrines—often not clearly formulated and even less well understood—than in a certain lively sense of justice, strong and naturally welling up within consciences, toward an order that would better balance the relations among the human factors of production. Unfortunately, the prohibitive laws drove workers to extra-legal actions of self-defense and toward theories of radical subversion, and when those laws were abolished (beginning in 1824 in England) the trade-union movement was already largely channeled into paths divergent from orderly social collaboration. Meanwhile, amid heated debates, economic-social and political-juridical theories were developing in divergent directions. Left-wing extremists saw in the trade union a cell of the new society, which, through a heroic class of producers and the myth of the general strike (Sorel), would have to replace the State with a federalism of economic organisms. Right-wing extremists, on the other hand, feared the irruption of authoritarian revolutionism, oppressive of individual freedom, almost a new form of feudalism. Intermediate were the more realistic theories (even if variously nuanced), aimed at immediate economic protection of workers and the promotion of reforms (v. LEGISLAZIONE SOCIALE), sometimes combined with cooperative action (guildism) and mutual-aid action, which, with time, were taking on more pronounced characteristics of their own.

III. SOCIAL CATHOLICISM AND TRADE UNIONISM — The reconstruction of professional institutions has always been one of the cornerstones of the doctrine and practice of modern Catholic social teaching. It was in the Papal States that (after restrictive measures by Pius VII in 1800–1801) the universities and corporations of craftsmen or of any branch of commerce were restored on new foundations (with a motu proprio of Pius IX in May 1852). Notable is the report by L. Bottini (*La questione operaia e la corporazione cristiana*) to the Seventh Catholic Congress (Lucca 1887), and even more so the Assisi Social Week (1911), entirely devoted to the subject.

For the official teaching, salient references appear in important encyclicals and in numerous documents and speeches from Leo XIII to Pius XII. A synthetic perspective is found in the so-called Malines Codes (chs. 3, 4, 7) and Camaldoli Codes (art. 67 ff.). The most recent formulation is that contained in the final declaration of the XXIV Social Week, also dedicated to professional organization (Genoa 1951). A trade union organization, it is stated among other things, expressed directly by professional categories; having as its raison d’être the pursuit of their interests in harmony with the demands of the common good; endowed with its own initiative and responsibility; in a relationship of independence with respect to political parties and autonomy with respect to the State, implies by the very fact of its existence an organic-pluralistic conception and conformation of social life, founded on a consideration of the person and on the recognition of his fundamental rights in the political-social sphere. Those who engage in any professional activity have, by the very nature of things, the right to associate. The objectives of the trade union organization are concretized in the pursuit of the interests proper to the category from which it is expressed. The trade union organization, whenever circumstances permit or demand it, may engage in activities that contribute to the elevation of the working classes, such as, for example, mutual aid, recreation, assistance, moral education, and religious formation. In defending its own interests or in pursuing its objectives, the trade union organization must inspire its action by the principle of collaboration: this is demanded by the very social nature of human beings, by the vital interdependence among the various moments and sectors of economic life, and is in conformity with scientific and technical progress.

Affirming collective bargaining as the normal means through which unions pursue the interests of their respective categories, and the strike as another means, within the framework of economic freedom, once attempts at conciliation have been exhausted and within the limits of the demands of the common good, it is also affirmed the independence of unions from political parties, without excluding relationships of collaboration with them. The State recognizes the trade union organization insofar as it arises as a free association, and therefore, with respect to the State itself, within the scope of its competencies, is by its nature autonomous. In order to effectively safeguard its own interests and better contribute to the realization of the common good, the trade union organization, in response to concrete local and temporal conditions, should be present within the State structure in a continuous and organic manner.

In keeping with its vision of life, it would be desirable for Catholics to establish trade union organizations of Christian inspiration. Historical contingencies may permit or require Catholics to join non-denominational trade union organizations, provided that the fundamental principles of social life are respected. In this case, Catholics must create workers’ associations entrusted with the task of imparting religious-moral formation, so as to inspire and guide action even in economic-social matters.

IV. TRADE UNIONISM IN ITALY – Throughout the 19th century and then at the beginning of the 20th, culture spreads, political suffrage widens, civil liberties grow, and both the confessional and mutual-aid movements develop. Moreover, an economy of higher wages, which permits saving; the concentration of large masses in urban centers and thus in continuous contact; the spread of new doctrines and social institutions—all this leads to the formation of a class consciousness, understood as the idea, felt and practically operative among the lower masses, of being called to constitute a homogeneous part, with its own special functions in the social body, and of possessing the rights and forces corresponding to translate this intention into concrete, vital, and lasting reality (G. Toniolo).

In Italy, new workers’ organizations arose late, because the new large-scale capitalist economy was implemented and extended slowly and with difficulty, due to various causes, among which the political struggles for national unity stand out, as they absorbed much of public and private activity, and the scarcity of raw materials. Depressed wages, lack of education, and the rigor of the penal code were elements that initially hindered the formation of an orderly professional movement. But then this movement would spread and consolidate more and more, though unfortunately mostly in forms divergent from a well-understood national interest; and in this, class egoisms, weaknesses of governments, and the incomprehension of the educated classes bear their share of responsibility; likewise, economists attached to the doctrine of laissez-faire and jurists too attached to rigid private-law doctrines of Roman law, no longer suited to the new political-economic environment.

Before 1860, the relatively largest nuclei of associations were found in Emilia, part of the then Papal States; they had a certain religious character. Similar societies with the aim of mutual aid were also found in Turin. The first resistance association appears to be that of typographers in Turin in 1848, aimed at opposing wage reductions. In 1856, the Artistic-Veterinary Association was founded in Altare (Genoa), the first production cooperative.

Mazzini, as early as 1842, wrote on the necessity of a special organization for Italian workers, and in 1861 proposed an organization of workers that would rise from the collegio d’arte through municipal and regional magistrates up to the great national council, i.e., the representation of the regions in the Artisan Association of Italy. In that year, the movement took a more decisive turn. Opposed to Mazzini’s ideology, which was national and collaborative in character, was the incipient socialist movement, whose principal exponent in Italy was the Russian Bakunin (between 1864 and 1874). Mazzini perceived the danger that was arising; the government did not. His article to Italian workers is a severe indictment of the International (London 1864), whose early steps he had followed with a certain sympathy, albeit a distrustful one. While Garibaldi launched the famous phrase: “The International is the sun of the future,” Mazzini reproached the doctrine and action of internationalism for the denial of God, of country, and of private property. In practice, however, the Mazzinian movement did not have much relevance.

A characteristic of the Italian movement is given by agricultural workers. In Italy, indeed an eminently agricultural country, land workers began to organize relatively early compared to other countries. Some Mantuan organizations date to 1884. The Fasci Siciliani were largely composed of peasants. The first, that of Catania, was inaugurated on May 1, 1889, and had a distinctly socialist character. The movement (rather disorderly) was strongly opposed and proved ephemeral. But leagues did not disappear in other regions of Italy. In Romagna, republican propaganda joined with socialist propaganda. In 1900, the Fraternity of Sharecroppers was founded in Forlì, and in 1901 other organizations were established in Ravenna and Cesena. In the same year, the First National Congress of Land Workers was held in Bologna, and the National Federation was constituted.

Another movement of particular importance is that of the Labour Chambers. Talk of them began in Italy in 1888, and in 1890 the statutes of the first Chamber, established in Milan, were finalised. Thus a kind of territorial community of workers came into being. Municipalities provided subsidies, while on the other hand the Secretariats of the People emerged, promoted by the Christian-social movement, which countered the monopolistic attempts of organisations of a socialist character. The struggle would then remain ongoing, chiefly with regard to the right of representation, invoked—even if as a minority—by the ‘white’ organisations in public administration bodies.

Between 1900 and 1906, a crisis of method and general direction was evident in the Italian labour movement. Following the split within the Socialist Party into reformist and revolutionary factions, a division also occurred within the labour movement. The Central Secretariat of Resistance, established in 1902, had ceased to function; then, after the Congress of 1905, it passed into the hands of opponents of the reformist method. The reformist organisations then founded (1 October 1906) the General Confederation of Labour, which subsequently played the most significant role in the broader movement (as, for example, during the factory occupations that followed the severe metallurgical conflict of 1920). It was composed of national federations of resistance (by industry or profession) and Labour Chambers that adhered to the class-struggle line. Affiliated organisations generally enjoyed functional and patrimonial autonomy, ‘governing themselves as free bodies with a democratic constitution’ (Article 45 of the confederate statutes), subject only to the confederation’s right of oversight. A convention linked the Confederation of Labour with the National League of Cooperatives and with the Federation of Mutual Societies (‘red triad’), while an alliance pact bound the Federation itself to the Socialist Party.

Among other national organisations that preceded the Fascist regime—and were later swept away by it, along with the C.G.L.—should be noted: the Italian Syndicalist Union, the old trade-union organisation dissenting from the General Confederation of Labour, with anarcho-syndicalist leanings; the Italian Labour Union, founded in 1918 after the Syndicalist Union expelled propagandists of the war against the Germans. Indeed, the Italian labour movement included minorities favourable to the war, such as the Syndicalist Chamber of Parma and the Milanese Syndicalist Union founded by Filippo Corridoni. The Italian Confederation of Workers, established in Rome in 1918, coordinated Christian syndicalism, which had a notable tradition (previously the movement had been centred on the Social Union among Italian Catholics [v.], dissolved in 1919). The ‘white labour triad’ consisted of the alliance proclaimed between this organisation, the Italian Cooperative Confederation, and the Confederation of Mutuality and Social Insurance. In January 1922 there arose the National Confederation of Syndical Corporations (Fascist), which was later reorganised into parallel confederate organisations of employers and workers for major branches of production (agriculture, industry and transport, commerce, credit and insurance, and another for professionals and artists).

Without being able to follow all the organisational systems and their vicissitudes in detail, it can be said in general terms—at least with regard to Italy—that individual workers join category associations (of the first degree) covering variously defined sectors (the so-called trade-union framework); these associations then federate and confederate (into second- or third-degree bodies whose members are not individual workers but first- or second-degree organisations). At the apex of this complex system stand the major confederations, representing—through intermediate bodies—workers of all categories. In Italy, this gives rise to the General Italian Confederation of Labour (with social-communist leanings) and the new Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions, which is apolitical and aconfessional and includes Catholic workers. For distinct but coordinated purposes—economic defence and ethical, cultural and similar aims—these workers group themselves in the A.C.L.I. (Italian Christian Workers’ Association [v.]).

In Italy, too, the movement of company executives is highly effective; these are the highest-grade employees who constitute a kind of general staff within the contemporary economic system. Their category organisations are gathered in the Italian Confederation of Company Executives (C.I.D.A.).

Among employers, organisation does not attain the integral unity seen in the confederations described above for workers; instead, it stops at the major branches of production, namely the Confederations of Agriculture, Commerce, etc. Of pre-eminent importance is the General Confederation of Italian Industry (born and reborn between the two world wars, in 1919 and 1944, coordinating movements dating back to the last two decades of the previous century). While it groups category confederations, the Syndical Association among Credit Enterprises (Associazioni) groups individual firms and companies directly. A separate place is held by the Confederation of Municipalisation, formed among federations of municipalised and equivalent enterprises. A parallel movement for employers and executives, akin to the A.C.L.I., is that of the U.C.I.D. (Christian Union of Employer Executives): V. OPERE ADERENTI ALL'AZIONE CATTOLICA, II. U.C.I.D.

Artisans and categories of liberal professionals also have their own organisations (for the latter, V. ORDINI E COLLEGI PROFESSIONALI).

V. DISCIPLINA GIURIDICA DELLE ASSOCIAZIONI PROFESSIONALI

Once the phase of legal prohibition and State non-intervention in the economic activity of private individuals had been overcome, legislation and jurisprudence—especially after the First World War—moved towards regulating collective or syndical labour relations. Not only was professional association considered a licit activity and thus capable of producing juridical effects, but the system of registration or recognition of unions as private-law entities also became common, and in some countries as public-law entities participating in State functions (especially the multifaceted administrative function) with normative powers (through specific acts such as collective contracts applicable to all categories of interested parties, members and non-members) and powers of representation, albeit modest, in various and numerous bodies.

Thus an interesting evolutionary cycle unfolds, still in the process of development or stabilization, which has moved from the more open hostilities of the first half of the last century between the State and trade unions to a current state of direct mutual collaboration. In contact with reality, the unions have greatly moderated—at least in their methods of struggle, except when they become more or less unconscious instruments of political parties—their revolutionary activity, not to mention those that have always kept themselves distant, by program, from subversive ideologies; the State, on the other hand, in realistic contact with social life, has recognized professional associations as entities to be utilized in the direct or indirect exercise of its own functions.

The system that is thus taking shape includes multiple relationships: between members and unions, between opposing unions (of employers and workers), between competing unions (within the same economic category, where there is a plurality of union organizations rather than unity), and between unions and the State. In authoritarian States—whether of a corporatist character (Fascist Italy, Spain, Portugal) or of a collectivist character (Russia)—only unions that conform to state policy may operate, becoming in practice instruments of the State.

The legal framework of professional associations in Italy, prior to Fascism, was inspired by liberal principles. In practice, freedom of association—including trade union association—was recognized, subject to the correctives of social legislation, even in theory, though action or attempts at action based on utopian principles were repressed. Labor relations were governed by common civil law, with the correctives of social legislation.

Regarding the freedom of professional association, the idea of special recognition for associations and professional leagues was taking root—an obvious and practically expedient idea, but one that was not realized, especially due to opposition from socialist unions (some of which, fearing entanglement in legal responsibility, refrained from orderly legal action) and the weakness of liberal governments. Two notable bills (1902) stand out: the first concerning labor contracts, and the second addressing the prevention and resolution of agricultural strikes, both of which foreshadowed the recognition of associations and leagues as legal entities with the capacity to contract and litigate. Other projects followed, developed through initiatives of the Superior Council of Labor. Although no formal legal recognition materialized, de facto recognition occurred through the appointment of representatives from certain associations to advisory bodies of public administration, beginning with the aforementioned Council.

Only with a decree issued by the last liberal cabinet (Facta) on October 29, 1922 (No. 1529), was the registration of professional associations finally regulated. These were divided into associations of industrial and agricultural employers and property owners, associations of merchants aimed at protecting collective interests in resolving issues related to labor-capital relations, and associations of workers and private-sector employees aimed at safeguarding professional interests and improving members’ economic conditions. However, the decree saw no application due to the lack of implementing regulations and, above all, the political upheaval brought by Fascism, which also transformed the syndical sphere by establishing, through successive stages, the so-called corporatist State.

Although formally the principle of free trade union or professional organization was upheld, in practice non-Fascist unions had no chance of survival, since only legally recognized unions (i.e., Fascist unions) subject to state control had the right to legally represent the entire category of employers or workers for which they were established. They could defend the interests of their members before the State and other professional associations, conclude collective labor agreements binding on all members of the category, impose contributions, and exercise public-interest functions with respect to them (Labour Charter, Declaration III).

VI. LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF TRADE UNIONS IN THE ITALIAN CONSTITUTION

The freedom of trade union organizations (Art. 39) is a very general principle also found in constitutions of widely varying orientations. In the current democratic system, this principle must be understood to mean: a) freedom to form and dissolve, to join and withdraw, with the possibility of multiple unions within the same economic-professional category (of workers and employers), all enjoying equal rights; b) freedom in relation to the State, which may only require registration in local or central offices, a registration that confers legal personality (of a private-law nature, even if with public-law prerogatives). Another aspect of freedom concerns relations with political parties, which might seek to use unions as pawns in their political games. The guarantee of independence in this regard, as is obvious, depends on the integrity of the governing bodies and the awareness of the members; however, legal protection may be found in internal (statutory) regulations, which must be democratic in nature as a condition for registration. The statutes must therefore provide for the elective nature of offices and the sovereignty of the assembly; they may also include and regulate referendums, while excluding any external interference in the affairs of the membership. The drafting of the specific bill to implement constitutional principles—also in relation to collective agreements (which have binding force for all members of the relevant categories if concluded through a unitary body of registered unions) and to the exercise of the right to strike (Art. 40)—has been arduous. This bill, presented on December 4, 1951 (No. 2380), is now under review by the Chamber of Deputies. It is noteworthy that it respects the autonomy of the unions, beginning with their own statutory provisions (and related regulations), whose norms constitute what is known as the unions’ own labor law, which fits into the broader concept of labor law, including state legal norms (state labor law). From a strictly legal standpoint, it is the State itself that recognizes the union as a legal entity (through an administrative act of constitutive verification, according to the cited bill). Yet from a political-sociological perspective, the view may be considered valid that in a certain sense it is also the union that recognizes the State, inasmuch as, by submitting a registration application (a legally free act that, if accepted, implies recognition as a legal entity), the union declares itself subject to all the effects of the legal framework established by the State in this area, with the attendant duties as well as rights.

VII. Internationalism in the Trade Union Field. Under the influence of Marxism in the political sphere, workers already in the last century united, organizing socialist internationals with alternating fortunes and orientations, in character, similarly to the internal motives of the various countries, now markedly revolutionary, now reformist progressive. In the trade union field, numerous occupational (or sectoral federation) organizations exist, linked to higher confederate bodies, such as, currently, the old World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), with communist leanings, and the very recent International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), apolitical and non-denominational.

As regards Christian trade unions, after attempts dating back to 1900-1908, the International Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CISC) was established in 1920, still active today (headquarters in Utrecht). Employers have also had their own organization for some time, as have certain categories of entrepreneurs. Worth noting here in particular is the movement of Christian-social employers (UNIAPAC): Union Internationale des Associations Patronales Catholiques, headquartered in The Hague.

Legally, it should be noted that the principle of trade union freedom is proclaimed in the so-called International Labour Charter, included in the Peace Treaties of 1919-20 (cf. art. 427 of the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently art. 1 of the Philadelphia Declaration of 1944), a principle specified and developed in the relevant conventions approved at the International Labour Conferences in San Francisco (1948) and Geneva (1949), with special protection. At these Conferences, alongside delegates from governments, there are also those from the most representative organizations of each member country, both employers' and workers' (v. International Labour Organization (UNO, 18 Dec. 1948) provides for the right of every individual to establish trade unions and to join them for the defence of their interests (art. 23, n. 4). More specifically, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Council of Europe Assembly, 25 Aug. 1950) provides, in addition to the aforementioned right, for its exercise, in the sense that it may not be subject to other restrictions than those provided by law, which constitute measures imposed, in a democratic society, by national security, by reasons of public safety, for the maintenance of order and the prevention of crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Legitimate restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of this right by members of the armed forces, the police, or the State administration (art. 13).

The Convention also provides for international protection through a European Commission and a European Court of Human Rights (art. 22 et seq.).