Signor padrone, questa volta
per te andrà di certo male:
siamo stanchi di aspettare
che tu ci faccia ammazzare.
Noi si continua a lavorare
e i sindacati vengono a dire
che bisogna aspettare
e di lottare non si parla
mai.
Signor padrone ci siam
svegliati
e questa volta si da battaglia
e questa volta come lottare
lo decidiamo soltanto noi.
Vedi il crumiro che se la
squaglia,
senti il silenzio nelle
officine
forse domani solo il rumore
della mitraglia tu sentirai.
Signor padrone questa volta
per te andrà di certo male:
d’or in poi se vuoi trattare
dovrai accorgerti che non si
può.
E questa volta non ci compri
con le cinque lire di
aumento:
se offri dieci, vogliamo
cento
se offri cento, mille noi
vogliam.
Signor padrone, non ci hai
fregati
con le invenzioni, coi delegati;
it tuoi progetti sono
sfumati:
ora si lotta contro di te.
E le qualifiche, le
categorie
noi le vogliamo tutte
abolite,
le divisioni sono finite:
alla catena tutti uguali
siam.
Signor padrone, questa volta
ormai a lottare s’è
imparato;
a Mirafiori s’è dimostrato
in tutta Italia si
dimostrerà.
E quando siamo scesi in
piazza
tu ti aspettavi un funerale
ma è andata proprio male
per chi voleva farci
addormentar.
Noi abbiamo
visto davvero
tanti di manganelli e scudi
romani
pero s’e visto anche tante
mani
che a cercar pietre
cominciano a andar.
Tutta Torino proletaria
alla violenza della questura
risponde ora, senza paura,
la lotta dura bisogna far.
No ai burocrati e ai
padroni!
Cosa vogliamo?
Vogliamo tutto!
Lotta dura a Mirafiori
e il comunismo trionferà!
No ai burocrati e ai
padroni!
Cosa vogliamo?
Vogliamo tutto!
Lotta dura in fabbrica e
fuori
e il comunismo trionferà!
YouTube recording:
TRANSLATION:
Dear Mr Boss,
This time round things are going to go really badly
for you, because we’re tired of just sitting around waiting for you to kill us
off.
We just carry on working like we’ve always done, and
the unions come round telling us that we should be. patient
and wait – but they never tell us how we should FIGHT!
But, Mr Capitalist, we’ve woken up now, and this time
there’s going to be a battle, and this time the only people who’ll decide how
it’s going to be fought will be US.
You can try sending your scabs into the factories, but
they’ll find everything at a standstill...just the sound of silence... and
perhaps tomorrow the only sound that you’ll hear will be the sound of a MACHINE
GUN.
This time round you’re really going to find the going
rough. You can try as hard as you like to “negotiate”, but you’re going to find
that it can’t be done!
Because this time you're not going to buy us off with
a 5 lire increase. If you offer us 10, then we'll want a hundred, and if you
offer 100, we'll demand a THOUSAND!
Mr Boss, you see, you haven't ground us down with all
your little inventions, with your delegates... all your projects are useless
now, because it's YOU that we're fighting!
And all qualifications, and all gradings, we're going
to abolish them all. We're not going to stand for any more phoney divisions,
.because on the assembly lines WE'RE ALL EQUAL!
Yes. Mr Boss, this time you're really going to have to
fight. You have had a taste of things already at Mirafiori – but soon you're
going to see it all over Italy!
When we had our march and came out into the streets,
you thought it was going to be a walkover – but you saw what happened to the
people who tried to quieten, us down.
And we saw all your cops out there, with their jeeps and
their truncheons, thinking they had it made. But we knew different when we saw
thousands of hands reaching down and grabbing rocks.
The whole of proletarian
And we say NO to the bureaucrats, and NO to the
bosses. You ask us what we want… WE WANT EVERYTHING! The fight is on, inside
the factory and out, and communism is going to WIN!
[Lotta Continua :: La ballata della Fiat, by Alfredo Bandelli, from the album
Fabbrica Galera Piazza, Dischi del Sole DS 1039/41, 1970]
_______________________________________
Translated
by Ed Emery
Extracted from: THE BOOK OF FIAT: Insurrection,
insubordination, occupation and revolutionary politics at the FIAT motor
company – 1907-1982
Published:
Red Notes / May Day Rooms
First
published in 2020