Anomalous Wave

Lately, with the general strike of December 12 coming up, the Wave has been preparing for an encounter with those unions that are taking part in the strike.

The relationship between movements and unions has always been problematic. Now the situation seems new. People in the movement see the general strike as an outcome of the mobilizations of the Wave. The general strike was first called for by FIOM and CGIL of the public sector, then the whole CGIL, and then the base unions (Cobas, SdL, CUB).

In Rome, the Wave is calling for an encounter with these unions. At Sapienza, there will be two round table discussions under the title New welfare, work and knowledge. On Friday 5 December, there will be a discussion at Science Politiche with representatives from CGIL. These include the national secretary of CGIL, Enrico Panini; the national secretary of FLC-CGIL (The Federation of Knowledge Workers), Domenico Pantoleo; the secretary of CGIL-Lazio, Claudio di Berardino.

Another discussion will take place on Thursday 11 December at the faculty of physics. This one will be with representatives of the base unions: the national spokesman of Cobas, Piero Bernocchi; the national secretary of CUB, Antonio Amoroso; the national coordinator of SdL, Fabrizio Tomaselli.

In addition to these meetings, there’s a new open letter written by “Sapienza in mobilization”, directed to the other subjects taking part in the general strike. This text was published at the Uniriot website on 3 December. The text emphasizes the role of the Wave and presents some proposals for creating common demands.

“With the slogan “We won’t pay the crisis” the students have launched a sign for other social subjects (…). The “we” of the slogan doesn’t speak about students only: “we” are all those who haven’t caused the crisis and therefore will not pay for it. It must be paid by enterprises and banks, this is the content of the slogan.”

“The power of the Wave has been capable to speak to the entire society and to transform both the general strike of the base unions of 17 October and the general strike of school of 30 October into something extraordinary. The autonomy of the student movement has enabled the extension of the mobilizations and a great radicality in the contents and the practices of struggle. 14 November was one of the biggest demonstrations organized autonomously by university and secondary school students.”

“To establish a strong social alliance, it’s not enough that we take to the piazza the same day. We must find convergence on some decisive contents, on which we absolutely want to win. Maintaining our specifities, differences and platforms of struggle, but making some common demands starting from four fundamental themes: school, university, precarity, and defence of territories and commons.”

Sapienza in mobilization presents its views about these topics:
- against the law 133, the law 169, and the decree law 180 which is on the way for its approval
- self-reform of the university
- against the laws which have conceded the process of precarization of labor, from the Treu package to the law 30
- struggle for a new welfare: direct and indirect income (housing, services, culture, right to study) for all
- intercategorial minimum salary for all the workers
- refusal of the privatizations of knowledge and research
- refusal of the devastation of environment and territories
- struggle to defend the commons
- more funding for the university and school, not military spending and “grandi opere”

Regarding the day of general strike, the proposal is to create a parade that connects with the unions, enabling the Wave to speak with workers. The idea is also to continue to paralyze the traffic in the city, as usual.

The relationship between the wave and the unions, and between “students” and “workers”, was discussed recently also in the article How to generalize the Wave?

At Sapienza, there were student elections on 25-26 November. The official results of the election were published on Wednesday.

The winners were the right-wing (supporters of the government) and the supporters of rector Frati.

There were about 140.000 students entitled to vote, and only 13.000 students voted. The turnout, appr. 10 %, was one of the lowest ever.

Of course the government is using the results against the movement. They speak about a “silent majority” (the voters) and say that the movement is marginal. People from the movement say they didn’t lose: “Now they say the movement is weak, but this is not true: the movement didn’t go to vote.”

The three biggest lists were:

1) Vento di Cambiamento (”Wind of change”). A list rooted in the faculty of medicine, connected to rector Frati.
2) Mondo Sapienza - Lista Aperta (”World of Sapienza - Open list”). Connected to the Catholic organization Comunione e Liberazione.
3) Azione Universitaria, the student organization of the right-wing party Alleanza Nazionale.

The lists of Anomalia Sapienza, UDU and Studenti democratici didn’t do too good.

At Sapienza this is the first time when the right wing will have its candidates in the academic senate and the council of administration (C.d.A.). However, Azione Universitaria is being accused of ballot rigging at the campuses of Pomezia and Latina.

The people from the movement emphasize the fact the Wave didn’t lose. “There was no list of the Wave: the movement is characterized by its principle of unrepresentability and refusal to delegate”.

“Those of us who decided to stand in the election did so only to utilize in an instrumental way the places of representation, to get access to information about decisions that concern students and the movement. These organs don’t have any kind of decisional power nor legitimacy.”

The people from the movement also point out that the low turnout shows how distant the elections are from the students who live the university. They also point out that the “no-Gelmini lists” as a whole gained the majority of positions in the faculties in mobilization and at the main campus (cittá universitaria), gaining many representatives in the faculty councils and one representative in the C.d.A. (council of administration).

“So, is this 10 percent that ’silent majority’ which the government wants to set against the Wave? Silent, yes. Silent and sad. But the majority is the noisy majority that is in the piazzas, in the streets, in the assemblies.”

“The only thing to attest is that the Wave has not lost anything. The ruins of representation are nothing in front of a movement that is creative, talks about life, dreams and desires, and concretely changes the present day after day.”