Against the illegitimate use of the initials USI-AIT

At the beginning of 1995, one part of USI (which was based in the city of Rome) tried to lead USI into an organization called ARCA-USAE (linked to a coordination of European unions) together with other Italian unions, both alternative as well as corporate. The ARCA project lasted a few years and in the end failed due to internal power struggles.

The majority of USI at that time objected to joining ARCA, conscious that this would mean ending the identity of USI and its participation in the IWA.

The part of the union referred to as USI Roma arose as the result of an internal process that led to a Congress held in Rome in April 1996 in which they declared their separation from the rest of USI. The legitimate part of USI held its Congress in Prato Carnico in May of the same year.

The XX IWA Congress (Madrid, December 1996), after checking the authoritarian practices of the splinter group from the Congress of Rome, decide to expel them from the IWA, recognizing at the same time USI which had held its Congress in Prato Carnico, as the only legitimate section of the IWA in Italy.

Despite all this, the splinter group continued usurping the name USI as well as IWA, creating serious problems for the legitimate USI-IWA in its union action (calling strikes, labour conflicts, etc.).

The splinter group, in addition to arbitrarily using our initials, USI-AIT, continued to have an organization and a way of conducting union activity that can only be defined as clientelist, corporativist, authoritarian and oriented at delegating power to the top of the organization (including at some times supporting the Roman Rifondazione Comunista party in local elections). All of this clearly has nothing to do with the principles of anarchosyndicalism and the IWA.

An example of the problems caused for our union because of this unclear situation was when we called for a strike against the war in Iraq, together with other alternative unions. USI Red Black Coordination sent a telegram to the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research saying that USI did not call any strike. The consequence of this was an enormous confusion amongst workers, since the Ministry issued a statement that declared the strike didn't exist.

Another example are the declarations of the leaders of the USI Red Black Coordination which announce that they would vote for the candidates of the party Rifondazione Comunista in the local elections in Rome.

Therefore we want to inform the union that participates in the Red Black Coordination with the initials USI / USI-AIT, that the only USI recognized by the IWA, and therefore the only one that can legitimately use their initials, is the one who currently (2010) has its National Secretariat in Via Bologna 28, Genova, and whose current National Secretary is Guido Barroero, demanding an immediate end to use both the name IWA / AIT of our international, to which they don't belong.

USI-IWA website is http://www.usi-ait.org and http://www.lottadiclasse.it

www.iwa-ait.org