LET'S ENTER EUROPE WITH OUR HEADS HELD HIGH UNEMPLOYED, CASUAL AND TEMPORARY WORKERS, IMMIGRANTS, PENSIONERS, PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: LET'S STRUGGLE AGAINST EXCLUSION, LET'S STRUGGLE FOR CITIZENSHIP 

The recent social struggles in France by unemployed and casual workers forces us all to  reflect collectively as to how to modify the theory and practice of political action in Europe's new millenium. With the great mobilisation of the French "chomeurs" (unemployed), we are finally seeing the first indications of a subject capable of being the direct protagonist of a genuine European unification, at least in the sense that interests us: a Europe of social rights organised from below, against the parameters of Maastricht and the bankers. Not only in Paris, but throughout France in recent weeks, a movement has exploded onto the scene: a movement of many voices, social in the sense of being open and representative of millions of people (whose support has been confirmed in many ways, from opinion polls to lending a hand or taking part in actions). A movement formed of the long term unemployed, excluded by the restructuring-closure of the fordist cycle; of young casual workers forced into deskilled and underpaid jobs; of temporary workers whose continual entry and exit from the "market", as they chase after this spasmodic imposed flexibility, has become a permanent condition. The French movement's objectives, its composition, its forms of organisation are fundamental points that we want to utilise in proposing this political-programmatic Manifesto so that, in Italy too, mobilisation can spread. 

Political-programmatic Manifesto 

Premises 

a) Changes to the labour market and forms of work mean that a society of "full employment" is definitively a thing of the past. It can no longer exist, not even as a theoretical objective, given the effects of the contraction in the quantity of labour socially necessary for commodity production in a globalised economy. We live in an age when unemployment -- but even more so, the casualised and temporary nature of work -- are both structural and expanding. 18 million "official" unemployed in the EU, 2.8 million in Italy, more than 30 million "underemployed": this is the newly born United Europe. We are witnessing a general "casualisation" of work relations. Today the notion of flexibility itself has become a "one way" process, the absolute disposability in time and space of labour-power, both material and immaterial. The equation which dominates our age reads: more development equals less employment. 

b) At this juncture, our daily experience is proving to be much more useful than those statistics which continue to measure the phenomenon on the basis of a quantitative and homogenous concept of "unemployment". The keynesian notion, according to which unemployment denotes a temporary condition whilst searching for a permanent job within a society of "full employment", is proving to be useless as a means of describing the modern condition of unemployment. One of today's subjects is the unemployed person who has been "expelled" from restructured production cycles. They are not young and, given their lack of the sort of training demanded by the markets, are not easily relocated in employment. In reality these best represent the "violence" of the current transition process from old to new forms of work, and it is they who have experienced the recent (failed) policies of "socially useful jobs". Many had previously received a lay-off package, having once held long term permanent jobs since prematurely abolished through restructuring. The figure of the modern unemployed is different to this, however: rather than  jobs of indeterminate duration, Europe's young workers receive their incomes through flexible, casual, and temporary work. We are seeing here figures who, unlike the classic unemployed, receive an income (and therefore rights) for limited times, and then immediately find themselves excluded, in search of another way into the market. Their status is constantly shifting. This condition of "underemployment" affects at least 30 million people in Europe who, for all their other differences, share a work experience which is flexible and structurally discontinuous, as well as forms of payment which are not those of classical wage labour. 

In the preceding period, access to citizenship rights was linked to work, and the fundamental terms of the preceding material and formal constitution were generated by the nexus between being a "long term permanent employee" and the possibility of receiving fundamental social guarantees (for example working conditions and pay regulated by legislation such as Italy's Workers' Statute, or public education, free health cover, an adequate pension system). Today, with the broad changes currently  underway throughout European society, millions of people risk being permanently excluded from even minimum conditions of social security, and thus from citizenship. This situation is both structural and on the rise, laying claim to being the driving axis of the whole productive and economic system, just as the inequality and exclusion of the social subjects directly concerned are the premises for the development of a society that marginalises. If the unemployed, casualised and temporary subject does not conquer citizenship rights, many other subjects will suffer, and rights will continually be cancelled, as is already happening throughout the EU. 

It is for for these reasons that the struggle for minimum social guarantees for unemployed, casualised and temporary workers is shaping up as a general struggle for citizenship rights. 

The reasoning from which we start is simple: as unemployed, casualised, temps and migrants we want to have at least the same conditions as other European citizens in the same situation as us. We want to enter Europe, and not simply be dragged into it. This is our TAX ON EUROPE, to be paid for by the banks, by the big captains of industry, by all those who hold the rod of command. This is much more pressing than the famous 6% to be paid for Maastricht.  

AN UNEMPLOYED ITALIAN, GERMAN OR FRENCH (WO)MAN IS AN UNEMPLOYED EUROPEAN. RAISE ALL THE SOCIAL MINIMUMS TO THE SAME LEVEL ACROSS EUROPE NOW! 

A programme of struggle with clear objectives 

1) by minimum social guarantees we understand a "packet" formed by a monetary incomes, a bonus for free access to basic services (transport, housing, health), and the availability of access and maintenance for lifeling learning. 

2) We call the packet of minimum social guarantees the European Minimum Income [Reddito Minimo Europeo -- RME]. 

3) Our goal is the struggle for the attainment of the European Minimum Income as a right of  citizenship. Its recognition by law is our objective. 

4) The subjects to benefit directly from the European Minimum Income are the unemployed, the casualised and temps; immigrants with temporary or permanentresidency permits; pensioners receiving the social minimum; people with disabilities or incapacitating illnesses. 

5) The struggle for the European Minimum Income is waged on two fundamental levels: that of local-territorial administrations (local councils, regional governments), and European transnational bodies (EU, EEC, European Social Fund). Struggling so that Italy adopts into law measures of intervention such as the RME is the most direct way to accelerate its uniform spread to the population of each EU state and the whole continent. Doing in Italy as in France means constructing a social Europe. Doing it in Italy, France, Germany and Britain means winning. 

6) The monetary component of the RME encompasses, in total or in part, the Minimum Monetary Income (Entrate Monetarie Minime -- EMM). This defines an income level below which no citizen may go -- a level equal for all, calculated on an annual basis. 

7) The EMM is 15 million lire a year. 

8) Every citizen whose income is less than the EMM must receive the RME (for example, if someone's annual gross earnings were 10 million lire, the monetary component of their RME would be 5 million lire). 

9) The bonus for free access to basic services is extended to all those with an annual income of 25 million lire or less. 

10) All citizens aged 16 years or older (and thus not obliged to attend schooling) are eligible for the RME. The RME of those under 18 years of age is paid as part of the family income. 

11) All eligible citizens aged 18 years or older receive the RME on an individual basis. 

Bonus Services 

1) The right to housing is inalienable. Unemployed, casualised or temporary workers, elderly people on a social pension, and people with disabilities or incapacitating illnesses are entitled to pay a "social" rent, so long as their annual income is no more than 25 million lire. All existing charges and sentences concerning those accused of committing acts relating to the need for housing are to be depenalised. The position of all those who have occupied unrented public housing and are unable to pay rent themselves is to be normalised, not through force but by a public inquiry that begins to resolve the problem. 

Diffuse University of Lifelong Learning 

We hold the demand for learning -- understood as the pursuit of knowledge, apprenticeship, creation and delivery from a technical, scientific and cultural point of view -- to be central. It defines an overarching right which is both a guarantee and a resource: a guarantee, given that in a society like ours, with a high immaterial and communicative content, the right to learning is synonymous with the right to be able to decide and choose; a resource, given that it is through learning that one can enter the labour market from a less subordinate and servile position. 
And being able to imagine a person's life as more than time spent in production for others is also an important mark of civilisation. 

1) By the Diffuse University of Lifelong Learning, we mean all those cultural, tecnical and scientific pursuits taken up across a citizen's life. From specialised courses to the theatre, philosophy lessons and listening to poetry or concerts, the network of permanent learning is a right to cultural growth valid for everyone. 

2) The poles of this network must be identified and advocated. 

3) Every citizen will receive a Diffuse University booklet containing certificates for courses or units. 

4) The courses or units will be free to those with an annual income of 25 million lire or less. 

5) Those who wish to study and are eligible for the RME (an annual income of up to 15 million lire) will receive a education supplement of up to 10 million lire per year. 

There is a great need to address the widespread phenomenon of young people -- above all in those parts of North-Eastern Italy where production is expanding -- who drop out from study in favour of a premature and unregulated entry into the labour market. It is absolutely indispensable that those studying between the age of 16 and 25 years be supported in this undertaking. A further possibility is a "social sabbatical year" for all workers or pensioners, which would bring us closer to the European norm from the viewpoint of the average quality of research and instruction. This could happen for a year every two or three years of continuous work, where the worker could "attend" the Diffuse University and dedicate themselves to their own formation. Another important reference is the population of immigrant workers, who should receive support in learning the language, laws, regulations and culture of the countries in which they find themselves. 

From Employment Offices to Social Protection Agencies 

We consider the present system of job placement for the unemployed to be useless and absurd. Before us, others have found them to be appendices to companies which used them as giant corralsfrom which to draw cattle for the slaughter. With the recent reform of the job placement system has come the privatisation of job placement (e.g. the legalisation of temp agencies). 
The employment offices must return to being at the service of citizens! 
They must be changed into institutions which protect unemployed, casual and temporary workers. 

1) By Social Protection Agencies we mean a structure composed in part of representatives of union and social assocations, in part of public personnel, including European observers. They will offer two services: one concerning available jobs and information pertaining to them, the other calculating the annual income of temporary and casual workers, and supplying the RME to those who are eligible for it. The first service outlined above will also entail the identification, formulation, creation, verification and acceptance of "socially useful jobs", "enterprise-projects", and "cooperative and ONLUS [non lucrative organizations of social utility] activities", to be closely coordinated with the European Social Fund and local and territorial administrations, with particular reference to the creation of socially necessary services. 

This first platform of demands, together with the points of reflection and analysis contained in the Political-programmatic Manifesto, define our point of departure. 

We are founding the FEDERAZIONE 3RME based upon these presuppositions and with these aims, starting from our condition as unemployed, temporary and casual workers so as to become citizens in the full sense of the term. 

3RME means RME by 3 

Reddito Minimo Europeo [European Minimum Income]  
Rete dei Movimenti contro l'Esclusione [Network of Movements against Exclusion] 
Reddito Massimo di Esistenza [Maximum Existence Income] 

The FEDERAZIONE is legally constituted as an association and sets out its own regulations on decision making, members' responsibilities, forms of membership available to individuals and groups, and its internal and external structure (branches, legal offices, information agencies). The FEDERAZIONE is simultaneously a social and union association. In this sense it is a "non-association" and a "non-union", since its tasks encompass and go beyond both simple cultural work and union coverage. Its principal goal is to realise its objectives and aims through social conflict, campaigns, and the credibility and deep-rootedness of its proposals. 
 

The comrades promoting the initiative, meeting in Padova during the month of January 1998.