Red's Labor Lost

Slowly the Communists are losing what was once a near stranglehold on Italian labor. In 1949 the CGIL (Communist-run labor federation) mustered more than 90% of Italy's union workers; today the Red membership has declined to about 60%. This hopeful trend is being accelerated by a new, hardheaded policy of the U.S. Embassy in Rome, through its control of offshore procurement in Italy (the equipping of NATO forces through U.S. purchases abroad).

Last January the Embassy decided to place its offshore contracts (amounting to $470 million in the past three years) on a basis that would hurt, rather than help, the Communist labor bosses. Specifically, whenever possible and practical, orders would not be given to shipyards and factories in which Communist unions held their ground or gained.

Red Challenge. Some months ago, the Embassy awarded a $7,528,000 contract to the Piaggio yards in Palermo for a NATO destroyer escort. Later, when a new plantwide election was held, the Reds argued that "the bosses think the workers are such imbeciles that they can be blackmailed. They don't know that the workers have sufficient intelligence to understand that orders must be assigned to plants and yards which have necessary equipment and qualified personnel ... in spite of American millionaires." Result: the Reds increased the number of Communist shop stewards at Piaggio from four to seven (out of eight). Faced with this challenge, the U.S. canceled the warship contract: a clear demonstration to Italian workers that, by voting Communist, they had taken bread out of their own and their families' mouths.

In Italy, where for a long time it was unfashionable to fight the Reds too hard, Premier Mario Scelba. his Cabinet and the pro-government press passed over the U.S. action in silence. Industrialists (some of whom, for protection's sake, have hired Communists as personnel directors) were silent too. But not the discomfited Reds. "Brutal interference . . . hateful measure . . . incitement to Fascism!" cried the Communists.

Heartening Victory. Despite the Red outcries and the government silence, the U.S. policy seems to be catching on. Last week there was a significant labor election at the vast Bombrini Paroei-Delfino ammunition works in Colleferro. south of Rome. Management feared Communist gains because 800 men had just been laid off. The Colleferro plant is Italy's biggest ammunition supplier; about 18% of its business is in offshore orders. In last week's election, the Communist vote (once a fungoid 68% ) dropped from 30% to 23.8%. At the same time, the vote for the rival non-Communist federation, the CISL, leaped from 53% to a very heartening 65.9%. Said one of Colleferro's directors: "To our notion, this election shows that the U.S. Embassy policy is right."

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