Victory for public services in Italy

(4 July 2011) The recent referendums in Italy proved that a coalition of the willing can change things for the better anywhere, argues Rosa Pavanelli.

On June 14, Italy woke up with the news that for the first time a referendum had reached the legal quorum to be binding. This is, in itself, a big step forward for Italian democracy - but the news that the turnout was around 56 per cent and that more than 95 per cent of people voted against water privatisation - and for public services - shows that something is starting to change in the country and, hopefully, Europe itself. The alliance that was built up between between the different families of civil society groups was crucial to achieving this historic result. In response, the government waged a vicious propaganda war to try to undermine our campaign to inform the public and encourage people to express their opinion by voting in the referenda. In the end, the people triumphed.

The campaign to hold a referendum against the proposed legislation to privatise water services collected more than 1.4 million signatures, which were deposited at the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome - in January 2011. The Italian Supreme Court validated two referendums of the four that were submitted earlier this year. Then a war between the government and civil society started to undermine the campaign - to ask the people their opinion. The campaign eventually helped win this long and hard battle. It is this very same alliance that has allowed, for the first time in 15 years, a referendum to reach the legal minimum vote.

Among the organisers were the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l'Acqua, a network of national associations and local committees that was created in 2006 - when water privatisation first reared its head. And then there was opposition to a 2009 law, requiring greater participation by private investors in the management of water services - which is still largely the prerogative of local authorities. That mobilized groups for more than three years – finally resulting in the referendum.

Of course, my union, the CGIL has been one of the corner stones of the movement. The co-ordinated efforts were instrumental in achieving success. From my point of view, the main lesson we can draw from such an experience is that in this case we were successful because the trade unions mobilised their members to work alongside non-trade union activist and other citizens. We worked not just as organisations but to demand our citizenship back.

The idea was to lead a campaign as a coalition of different movements, a "super parts" body that could not be accused of being politically directed by whatever party. In all the debates and initiatives, we participated under the umbrella of the Italian Forum. We never accepted the sponsorship of p

olitical parties, while lobbying them for some endorsement. We organised several popular demonstrations with 250.000 people, in several cities. We managed to convince people of our argument and the need to vote. Of course, the issue of water itself was really sensitive to ordinary people, but the real surprise was that the same was true on the privatisation of local public services - meaning waste and transport as well. Especially, above all, if you consider the enduring attacks regarding cost, efficiency, quality, and the scandal of waste in Naples and other southern cities - that is an argument often used against public services.

The referendum on the nuclear energy has been very important for us as well. We do not have nuclear plants and it is easy to understand the opposition to them in a country like ours, which is exposed to very-high seismic risk, where the waste sector is infiltrated by criminal organisations and there is little transparency.

So the four issues - the fourth was Berlusconi's immunity - at stake were seen as a "no" to the government and a "yes" to a different model of doing things. The positive result of the referendum drives forward change. It pushes for a model that is more oriented to renewable and clean energy, for quality public services and for more transparency - with greater involvement of citizens. This can only be good for the public sector and if it was possible in Italy with the media, the government and the political establishment against - just to remind readers that Berlusconi himself boycotted the referendum - it is possible in any other country in Europe, or the world.

Rosa Pavanelli is Vice-President of the European Federation of Public Service Unions and secretary of international relations at the FP-CGIL union.

- Read the article on the Public Service Europe website