CHAPTER 31
HOUSING STRUGGLES IN TURIN
“The spread of struggles into the communities, outside
of the workplace, has been a crucial development in
In many workplaces, workers have been forced into a
defensive position, and organisation has been difficult to sustain. This has
led to a growth of organising outside the workplace, in many cases sponsored by
shop stewards from local factories, and built by women, students and militants
from the various political organisations.
In November 1974 there were a number of developments in
this area, which will become increasingly important. These have been the
organisation against the rise in bus and train fares, organisation against the
increased price of electricity; organisation for better schools and day care
for children; and the movement to occupy empty housing. The following deals
with the housing struggle in
THE MASS OCCUPATION OF THE NUOVA FALCHERA HOUSING
ESTATE
The occupation of empty houses and the development of
mass squatting is nothing new in
In October there was a new development. A whole new
housing estate at Nuova Falchera, on the outskirts of
The point is that working class people in
The crisis has changed that, though. A lot of the
families who have occupied Nuova Falchera have
husbands, wives and young people who work in the factories of
As a result, many workers realised that their hopes of
saving up to get a place were just dreams. The layoffs threatened to be
permanent – an indefinite wage cut. As a result, they decided to go ahead and
take a place for themselves. And hundreds of other working class families did
the same.
By the time that the number of occupying families had reached about
400, they started to get better organised. They set up a Struggle Committee,
made up of 2 delegates from each staircase in each of the 5-storey flat-blocks.
This committee was responsible for the defence of the occupation, for making
sure that water, electricity etc were connected, and for negotiating with the
housing authorities (a body known as GESCAL).
Photo: …………
At this point GESCAL came along and tried to organise
the people to whom the flats had originally been allocated, so as to put
pressure on the occupiers (the estate is brand new, and the new tenants hadn’t
arrived when the squatters moved in). But this move failed. Some of the new
tenants already had flats elsewhere in
The decision by the squatters was that they would be
prepared to move out of the occupied houses – but only on condition that GESCAL
provided each family with somewhere decent to live. Those places would have to
be approved as suitable by the Struggle Committee.
At the time of writing, that’s where things stand. One
of the organisers of the Committee, a worker who had been sacked from FIAT at
the time of the mass occupation in 1973, said that he didn’t think the local
authorities would try to evict them at this moment in time. The last time this
was tried was at San Basilio, in Rome, and there was
rioting all day, and a comrade got shot. And now the political situation in
Italy is so tense (the papers are talking every day about a possible coup d’état)
that any order to evict them would have to come direct from central government
in Rome.
Meanwhile, the families from the occupation have become
part of the growth of unification that is taking place between the different
struggles in
Finally, what is the position of the trade unions? In
previous housing occupations, the unions have generally stood apart and
condemned the action. But this time they have been forced to support it,
because of pressure from within the factories. Many of the workers involved in
the occupation – some of them shop stewards – come from the big factories
around
[Reprinted from Big Flame Bulletin, Date 1974?]
_______________________________________
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