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Labour, Gender and Deindustrialisation: Women Workers at Fiat (Italy, 1970s–1980s)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2019

Maud Anne Bracke Open the ORCID record for Maud Anne Bracke [Opens in a new window]
Maud Anne Bracke*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow, College of Arts, School of Humanities, Glasgow G12 8QH, United Kingdom
*
Maud.Bracke@glasgow.ac.uk
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Abstract

The article presents an in-depth analysis of the struggle for gender equality in hiring, as well as campaigns for parental leave and demands for improved work conditions, by female workers in manufacturing industry in 1970s–80s Italy. The case study is focused on Fiat in Turin, a highly significant site given its economic role in Italy and Europe, and its history of social conflict and radical workforce. Against the backdrop of dramatic changes in gender relations since the 1960s, ongoing industrial unrest since 1968 and the introduction of new gender-equality legislation, fatefully coinciding with the onset of deindustrialisation and the rise of unemployment in manufacturing, trade union feminism presented an original and, viewed in hindsight, highly significant agenda. The events in Fiat demonstrate the extent to which new demands and ideas regarding the value of women's work became acceptable in the workers’ movement and in society at large, but also reveal the obstacles which the feminist politics of work encountered, and the persistence of gender-based prejudice in understandings of the value of work in all its forms. The analysis is based on archive material, press and original interviews.

Type
Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 484 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Revelli, Marco, Lavorare in Fiat (Milan: Garzanti, 1989), 27Google Scholar.

2 On the former see Cockburn, Cynthia, Brothers: Male Dominance and Technological Change. London (London: Pluto Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Baron, Ava, ‘Masculinity, the Embodied Male Worker, and the Historian's Gaze’, International Labor and Working-Class History, 69, 1 (2006), 143–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the latter see Martin, Roderick and Wallace, Judith, Working Women in Recession (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Curthoys, Ann, ‘Towards a Feminist Labour History’, Labour History, 29, 1 (1979), 88–98Google Scholar; Fonow, Margaret M, ‘Protest Engendered: The Participation of Women Steelworkers in the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Strike of 1985’, Gender and Society, 12, 6 (1998), 710–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hayes, Ingrid, Radio Lorraine cœur d'acier: Les voix de la crise (Paris: Presses Science Po, 2018)Google Scholar; Clark, Andy, ‘“And the Next Thing the Chairs Barricaded the Door”: The Lee Jeans Factory Occupation, Trade Unionism and Gender in Scotland in the 1980s’, Scottish Labour History, 48, 1 (2013), 116–34Google Scholar; Anitha, Sunduiri and Pearson, Ruth, Striking Women: Struggles and Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2018)Google Scholar. Recent studies on women's workplace activism in Italy include Frisone, Anna, ‘Dévoiler le genre dans la lutte de classes. Le féminisme syndicaliste en Italie dans les années 1970’, in Gallot, Fanny, et al. , eds., Le genre de l'engagement dans les années 1968 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016)Google Scholar; Frisone, Anna and Tolomelli, Marica, ‘Gender and Class in the Italian Women's Liberation Movement’, in Schulz, Kristina, ed., The Women's Liberation Movement: Impacts and Outcomes (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017)Google Scholar; Betti, Eloisa, ‘Unexpected Alliances: Italian Women's Struggles for Equal Pay, 1940s–1960s’, in Boris, Eileen, Hoehtker, Dorothea and Zimmermann, Susan, eds., Women's ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to the Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 276–99Google Scholar. General historiographic comments in Vigna, Xavier and Zancarini-Fournel, Michelle, ‘Intersections entre histoire du genre et histoire ouvrière’, Clio, 38, 2 (2013), 181–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Steven High, ‘“The Wounds of Class”: A Historiographical Reflection on the Study of Deindustrialization, 1973–2013’, History Compass (2013); Eloisa Betti, ‘Gender and Precarious Labor in a Historical Perspective: Italian Women and Precarious Work Between Fordism and Post-Fordism’, in International Labor and Working-Class History, 89, 2 (2016), 62–83; Jackie Clarke, ‘Closing Moulinex: Thoughts on the Visibility and Invisibility of Industrial Labour in Contemporary France’, Modern and Contemporary France, 19, 4 (2011), 443–58; Jackie Clarke, ‘The récit de filiation ouvrière and the unfinished business of Fordism in twenty-first-century France’, Modern and Contemporary France, 26, 3 (2018), 261–73.

4 Major pieces of legislation in the United Kingdom include the Equal Pay Act (1970), Sex Discrimination Act (1975); in France the 22 December 1972 Act (‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’), Roudy Act (1983).

5 Marc Lazar, ‘La gauche et le défi des changements dans les années 70–80. Les cas français et italien’, Journal of Modern European History, 9, 2 (2011), 241–62.

6 There are a few semi-academic works on the Intercategoriale donne, often written by participants and including original sources: Il sindacato di Eva : l'attività dell'intercategoriale donne CGIL-CISL-UIL e dei coordinamenti donne di diverse categorie : documenti 1978–81 (Turin: Centrostampa FLM Piemonte, 1981); Florea Bocchio and Antonia Torchi, L'acqua in gabbia: Voci di donne dentro il sindacato (Milan: La Salamandra, 1979); Ada Cinato, Cristina Cavagna, et al., La spina all'occhiello: L'esperienza dell'Intercategoriale donne CGIL-CISL-UIL attraverso i documenti, 1975–78 (Turin: Musolini Editore, 1989); Nicoletta Giorda, Fare la differenza: L'esperienza della Intercategoriale Donne di Torino 1975–1986 (Turin: A. Manzoni, 2007).

7 Among many works that might illustrate this, Luisa Passerini's works have particular importance, especially: Luisa Passerini, Autoritratto di gruppo (Florence: Giunti Editore, 1998).

8 Rick Halpern, ‘Oral History and Labor History: A Historiographic Assessment after Twenty-Five Years’, The Journal of American History, 85, 2 (1998), 596–610.

9 Among others: Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010); Alessandro Portelli, The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997).

10 A similar point in Rebecca Clifford, ‘Emotion and Gender in Oral History: Narrating Italy's 1968’, Modern Italy, 17, 2 (2012), 209–21. On memories of 1970s feminism in relation to wider societal discourse, see: Erica Capussotti, ‘Memoira e oblio del movimento femminista nelle donne della Pantera a Torino’, PhD Thesis, Universita’ degli Studi di Torini, 1993; Andrea Hajek, ‘“We are not Heiresses”: Generational Memory, Heritage and Inheritance in Contemporary Italian Feminism’, in Mark Ayyash and Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, eds., Generations and Protests: Legacies, Emergences in the MENA region and the Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 224–44; Andrea Hajek, ‘Feminist Impact: Exploring the Cultural Memory of Second-Wave Feminism in Contemporary Italy’, in Andrea Hajek, Christine Lohmeier and Christian Pentzold, eds., Memory in a Mediated World. Remembrance and Reconstruction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 129–41.

11 Among the works on social and cultural protest in Italy, 1968–1969, see: Aldo Agosti, Luisa Passerini and Nicola Tranfaglia, eds. I luoghi e le culture del ’68 (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1991); Gino Bedani, Politics and Ideology in the Italian Workers’ Movement (Oxford: Berg, 1995); Robert Lumley, States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978 (London: Verso 1990). On the Hot Autumn in Turin, see Nicola Tranfaglia, Brunello Mantelli, ‘Apogeo e collasso della ‘citta’-fabbrica’: Torino dall'autunno caldo alla sconfitta operaia del 1980’, in Nicola Tranfaglia, ed., Storia di Torino, Vol. IX: Gli anni della Repubblica (Milan: Einaudi, 1999), 827–59.

12 Lumley, States of Emergency, 167–270.

13 Giudo Romagnoli, Consigli di fabbrica e democrazia sindacale (Milan: Mazzotta Editore, 1978), 172.

14 Trade union density among employees between 1969 and 1980 rose from 33 per cent to 48 per cent. This was a sharper rise than elsewhere in Europe. See www.stats.oecd.org (last visited 28 Jan. 2019). On the political role of trade unions in 1970s Italy see Nanni Balestrini and Primo Moroni, L'orda d'oro 1968–1977: La grande ond ata rivoluzionaria e creativa, politica ed esistenziale (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1997).

15 Lumley, States of Emergency, 209–14.

16 Aris Accornero, Il lavoro come ideologia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980).

17 Luisa Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 50–1. On gendered attachments to work among women in the French context, see: Jackie Clarke, ‘Closing Time: Deindustrialization and Nostalgia in Contemporary France’, History Workshop Journal, 79, 1 (2015), 107–25.

18 Nicola Pizzolato, ‘Gli operai, gli immigrati, la rivoluzione. Detroit e Torino: Un'ipotesi comparativa (1967–73)’, Meridiana, 56 (2006), 47–69.

19 Conference report: ‘Consultazione nazionale lavoratrici, Roma 28/01/1969’, in Archivio Storico CGIL (Rome), Archivio confederale, ‘Convengi, conferenze, seminari’, 1B 34, Vol. 82, 1/16.

20 ‘Consultazione nazionale lavoratrici, Roma 28/01/1969’, Vol. 82, 1/7.

21 La CGIL dal VII all'VIII Congresso: Atti e documenti CGIL e documenti unitari (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1973), 395.

22 On Italian feminism of the long 1970s see, among others: Teresa Bertilotti and Anna Scattigno, eds., Il femminismo degli anni settanta (Rome: Viella, 2005); Fiamma Lussana, Il movimento femminista in Italia: experienze, storie, memorie (Rome: Carocci, 2012); Paola Bono and Sandra Kemp, eds., Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991); Maud Anne Bracke, Women and the Reinvention of the Political: Feminism in Italy 1968–1983 (New York: Routledge, 2014); Yasmine Ergas, Nelle maglie della politica: Femminismo, istituzioni e politiche sociali nell'Italia degli anni settanta (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986); Judith Adler Hellman, Journeys among women: Feminism in five Italian cities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987). On feminism in Turin: Liliana Ellena, ‘Spazi e culture politiche del femminismo torinese: Un processo tra memoria e ricerca storica,’ in Bertilotti, Scattigno, Il femminismo, 225–43; Piera Zumaglino, Femminismi a Torino. Contributi di Angela Miglietti e Agnese Piccirillo (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1996).

23 On the transnational contexts of Italian 1970s feminism see the above-mentioned Bracke, Women and the Reinvention.

24 On trade union feminism in Genoa see Laura Varlese, Anna Frisone and Giovanna Cereseto, Non è un gioco da ragazze – Femminismo e sindacato: i Coordinamenti donne FLM (Rome: Ediesse, 2010).

25 Author's interview with Nicoletta Giorda, Turin, 5 Nov. 2013 (henceforth NG). (All interview citations translated from Italian by the author).

26 Author's interview with Giovanna Cuminatto, Turin, 30 Aug. 2013 (henceforth GC).

27 Author's interview with Laura Scagliotti, Turin, 29 Aug. 2013 (henceforth LS).

28 Maud Anne Bracke, ‘Building a “Counter-Community of Emotions”: Feminist Encounters and Socio-Cultural Difference in 1970s Turin’, Modern Italy, 17, 2 (2012), 223–36.

29 Law 330 (20 May 1970): Norme sulla tutela della libertà e dignità dei lavoratori, della libertà sindacale e dell'attività sindacale nei luoghi di lavoro e norme sul collocamento.

30 Anna Frisone, Quando le lavoratrici si ripresero la cultura: femminismo sindacale e corsi 150 ore delle donne a Reggio Emilia (Bologna: Edizioni Socialmente, 2014); Maria Luisa Mirabile, ‘La donna nelle 150 ore’, Rassegna sindacale, 16 Mar. 1978, 37–8.

31 The group's initial stated aims: ‘Proposte del gruppo Intercategoriale Delegate CGIL-CISL-UIL alle OOSS e a tutte le lavoratrici sulla problematica femminile,’ in Cinato, Cavagna, La spina all'occhiello, 13–4 and 71–5.

32 Rivolta Femminile, ‘Manifesto (1970)’, in Bono, Kemp, Italian Feminist Thought, 39.

33 Anna Bravo, A Colpi di Cuore: Storie del Sessantotto (Bari: Laterza, 2008), 68.

34 On these debates see Maud Anne Bracke, ‘Between the Transnational and the Local: Mapping the Trajectories and Contexts of the Wages for Housework Campaign in 1970s Italian Feminism’, Women's History Review, 22, 4 (2013), 625–42.

35 Perry Willson, Women in Twentieth-Century Italy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2010), 118. As is well known, for this period figures on female employment ought to be interpreted cautiously; they underestimate female employment by not including various forms of labour in the informal economy.

36 Eloisa Betti, ‘Women's Working Conditions and Job Precariousness in Historical Perspective: The Case of Italian Industry during the Economic Boom (1958–1963)’, in Izabella Agárdi, Berteke Waaldijk, Carla Salvaterra, eds., Making Sense, Crafting History: Practices of Producing Historical Meaning (Pisa: Plus, 2010), 175–205.

37 Paul Ginsborg, Storia dell'Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi (Milan: Einaudi, 2006), 601.

38 CGIL-CISL-UIL Piemonte, 10–11 March 1981: ‘Primo convegno regionale delle donne: Qualche dato sull'occupazione femminile’, Archivio Istituto Piemontese Gramsci (Turin), Fondo CCdL/TO, 1981.

39 These included sewing machine producer Singer and chocolate producer Venchi. Giorda, Fare la differenza, 206.

40 Its passing resulted partly from the need to comply with EEC norms. Marina Calloni, ‘Femocrats and the Reframing of Gender Equality Policy in Italy’, in Ulrike Liebert, ed., Gendering Europeanisation (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2003), 117–48.

41 FLM donne, ‘Le leggi e le donne’,1980, in Archivio storico del movimento femminista (Turin), Fondo Mecozzi, II, 2, fasc. 1980. See also: Bianca Beccalli, ‘Le politiche del lavoro femminile: Donne, sindacati e Stato tra il 1974 e il 1984’, Stato e Mercato, 15, 3 (1985), 423–59.

42 ‘La polemica sulle nuove assunzioni,’ La Stampa, 10 Jan. 1978.

43 Romagnoli, Consigli di fabbrica, 76–82.

44 See various testimonies in Bocchio, Torchi, L'acqua in gabbia, 145–89.

45 Such a critique, for instance, can be found in Libreria delle donne di Milano, ‘Piu’ donne che uomini’, Sottosopra, Jan. 1983.

46 See, for instance, ‘Sei donna? Niente assunzione,’ La Stampa, 11 Jan. 1978.

47 ‘E’ discriminazione escludere donne da reparto presse?’ La Stampa, 12 Jan. 1978.

48 Giorda, Fare la differenza, 290.

49 Revelli, Lavorare in Fiat, 87.

50 Leaflet: ‘CGIL-CISL-UIL Provinciale di Torino: Tutti i disoccupati uguali di fronte alle assunzioni’, Turin, 07/01/1978, in Giorda, Fare la differenza, 205–6.

51 Report in Archivio Storico della CGIL nazionale (Rome), Archivio confederale, ‘Convengi, conferenze, seminari’, 1975, ‘La donna nella fabbrica e nella societa’, 43–55.

52 LS.

53 LS; GC.

54 CGIL, ed., IXo congresso della CGIL: Documenti (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977), 10:63 and 10:205–7.

55 Giorda, Fare la differenza, 329–34.

56 CGIL-CISL-UIL, ‘Nota per i delegati: con le donne entrano in fabbrica nuovi problemi, vecchie contradizzioni, e la voglia di cambiare il modo di lavorare e di vivere’, Torino, 1980; Archivio storico del movimento femminista (Turin), Fondo Mecozzi, II, 1.

57 Mecozzi's testimony: ‘AM, anni 38’ [1980–81], Fondo Alessandra Mecozzi, Archivio storico del movimento femminista (Turin), 1983: Chronologia II.3.

58 CGIL-CISL-UIL, ‘Nota per i delegati’.

59 ‘Considerazioni sul senso di una battaglia delle donne per l'occupazione’, in Giorda, Fare la differenza, 210–1.

60 Giorda, Fare la differenza, 261.

61 Tina Fronte, interviewed in Giorda, Fare la differenza, 265.

62 Ebbinghaus, Bernard and Visser, Jelle, ILO, OECD, National Statistical Yearbooks, Labour Force Surveys and Union Data (Geneva: ILO Geneva, 2000)Google Scholar.

63 Ginsborg, Storia d'Italia, 601.

64 PCI, ‘Conferenza nazionale dei comunisti sulla Fiat: Documento preparatorio’ (Turingraf, 1980), 14–5.

65 PCI, ‘Conferenza nazionale dei comunisti sulla Fiat’, 33.

66 Lunadei, Simona, Motti, Lucia, Righi, Maria Luisa, eds., E’ brava ma…Donne nella CGIL, 1944–1962 (Rome: Ediesse, 1999), 83Google Scholar.

67 A fuller discussion of the crisis is in Polo, Gabriele, Sabattini, Claudio, Restaurazione italiana: Fiat, la sconfitta operaia dell'autunno 1980 (Rome: Manifestolibri, 2000)Google Scholar.

68 Belforte, Silvia, Ciatti, Martino, Il fondo del barile: Riorganizzazione del ciclo produttivo e composizione operaia alla Fiat dopo le nuove assunzioni (Milan: La Salamandra, 1980), 108Google Scholar.

69 Federazione CGIL-CISL-UIL Piemonte, ‘Fiat: Storia di una lotta’, Bollettino mensile di documentazione, 36 (Turin, 1980).

70 La Stampa, 2 July 1980.