considered free (212): about a strange class struggle ... E' doveroso riconoscerlo, prima di ogni altra riflessione: sono un dipendente pubblico e sono un privilegiato. Non c'è crisi che tenga: il mio posto di lavoro e il mio salario sono garantiti. Non dobbiamo mai dimenticarlo, noi dipendenti pubblici, soprattutto quando ci confrontiamo con le persone che lavorano nel settore privato.
Fatta questa necessaria premessa, credo sia giusto commentare quello che sta avvenendo negli Stati Uniti. Il governatore del Wisconsin, il repubblicano Scott Walker, ha proposto una legge per tagliare i salari ed eliminare i diritti alla contrattazione collettiva dei lavoratori del pubblico impiego. Il primo obiettivo, quello sbandierato nei comunicati e nelle conferenze stampa, è quello to restore the deficit in a state hit hard by the economic crisis. But the unspeakable goal, although it escaped the same Walker in a wave-off, is to complete the picture of Reagan: to weaken the public sector unions, as well as in the eighties was the case with the private sector. And Governor Walker is already finding imitators in the Republican Party who is preparing for the 2012 presidential campaign.
Despite the protests of workers in Wisconsin, particularly teachers who are the most tenacious in the strikes of recent days, the project goes forward, because it is viewed positively by many citizens, many workers who suffer daily the effects of the economic crisis world. Anyone who has seen month after month, reduce the salary, those who have lost their jobs, who saw their savings vanish in the failures of large investment banks, who failed to redeem the mortgage on your house, all of them - and unfortunately million - no longer tolerate that there are other workers, most of the money paid their taxes, they paid much less than the account of the crisis. It 'a particular form of class struggle that is fought entirely within a single class, a sort of "civil war" Class, if you will pardon the expression, or a "war between the poor." Step
from global to local. A few days ago we workers of the Municipality of Salsomaggiore we decided to proclaim a state of agitation, with the blockade of overtime. against the decision of the City Council not to include in the budget of 2011, the proportion expected to pay for specific projects over the working time. The protest is little more than symbolic: we do not do more overtime, however, that there would not be paid. I attended the meeting and voted strongly to the proposal of the state of agitation, because the real issue here is not only the appropriation of this fund to be allocated to additional salary, but also the fact that in recent weeks the unions - and so the workers - have not been involved in a phase of complex decisions that necessarily provide the sacrifices, even painful. Our town, like almost every town of Italy, was hit by a series of cuts and a policy which, although they profess to federal, is becoming more centralized.
While recognizing the right reasons for our protest, I do some 'hard to explain them to others. For example, my wife, who in the past two years has gone from one job to another precarious, with wages at the limit of decency, and no recognition of rights, plus the failure of a company of real crooks - I spoke spread to other "considerations" such as the no. 26 and nr. 36, which I recommend reading - in which were the only ones to pay the workers. I struggle to tell our claims to the many people in the province where I live, until recently, lots of jobs and opportunities, are subject to layoffs.
In Italy, as in the U.S., there is a continuous attack against civil servants. In Italy there is a Minister on the fight against the "lazy" based his political career. There is a growing percentage of workers who suffered severely because of the crisis, thinks that our privileges are unfair, or at least unjustifiable.
not my intention to defend the civil servants,
tout court. I know that we are lazy and the union is wrong when he defends people that are indefensible. It is not this not the place to do a story of the civil service in Italy, which, especially in some regions, represented a form of welfare
for many families. But I would defend the role of public servant, and I think this should open a serious debate, especially on the left, not just hide the problems we are and where we must intervene. A society needs people who work for the community, for others, needs of public schools, public health, law enforcement, he even need a bureaucracy, which of course must be honest and efficient. Years and years in which we have been taught that "the State is not the solution, ma il problema" hanno lasciato il segno e pesano nella coscienza collettiva. Lo Stato serve e serve tanto più a chi è più debole, serve di più nei momenti di crisi, serve ai lavoratori, a tutti i lavoratori, pubblici e privati.
Per questo dobbiamo ristabilire un patto tra lavoratori, riuscendo a sconfiggere l'idea che tende a posizionarci su opposte barricate, in una logorante guerra di posizione. A un mio collega che lavora nel settore privato vorrei spiegare che quando lotto per fare meglio il lavoro di dipendente pubblico, lotto anche per lui, rendere efficaci i servizi di cui ha bisogno la sua famiglia. Gli vorrei spiegare che non sto difendendo un privilegio, ma difendo la dignità del mio lavoro e allo stesso tempo difendo l'idea that the state is useful, that the government serves everyone. I would ask him respect, of course, aware that this respect I deserve me, doing well the work for which he, with his taxes, I pay your salary. I hope you can continue to fight together because, as they say in Latin,
stabunt simul simul cadent .
As for the visions of the future, I think it would be preferable that we should begin with the concerns of the day tomorrow, when we assume that we are still almost all alive. In truth, if Remote 999, somewhere in Europe, the few papers and then there were those many theologians who had thrown predict how it would be the world after a thousand years, I bet that would totally wrong. However, something I think we would have guessed more or less: that there would be no fundamental difference between the confused human being today, who knows not and will not ask where it lead, and people are terrified that, in those days, believed to be close to the end of the world. In comparison, it will already expected a much greater number of differences of any kind between the people we are today and what happens to us, not in a thousand, not a hundred years. In other words, perhaps we have much more in common with those who have lived a thousand years ago than with the others who will live a century from now the planet ... And 'now the world he is ending at sunset is what a thousand years ago was just dawning. 
