15 November, 2010
A woman and metalworker won election as General Secretary of Italy’s largest labour federation, the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL). Susanna Camusso was elected by the federation’s 160-member National Executive Assembly on 3 November with a 79.1% vote, succeeding Guglielmo Epifani who stepped down due to term limits.
Camusso, 55, becomes the first woman to lead a major national labour centre in Italy, and the challenges in front of her are great. Considered Italy’s most militant labour federation, the 5.7-million-member CGIL must confront the €23.5 billion in public spending cuts that the Berlusconi government is proposing, and it faces social regressions that car-maker Fiat is demanding in return for investing in Italian auto factories.
Following her election, she said of Silvio Berlusconi, “The more he governs, the more trouble he creates.” She said the sooner that Berlusconi retires from public office, “the better it will be for the country.”
CGIL General Secretary Susanna Camusso
Regarding Fiat, she must navigate the militancy of CGIL’s Metalworkers (FIOM) branch – once her own constituency – with the moderation of Italy’s other two national labour centres, the UIL and CISL, in dealing with the automaker. One test will be Fiat’s insistence on individual factory agreements instead of a national collective agreement.
Another will be the determination by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne to drive a wedge between CGIL-FIOM and the other federations in coming talks over implementing the company’s five-year, €20 billion investment plan in Italy.
Camusso began her union career in 1977 as a union organiser for CGIL’s FIOM branch in Milan. Over a 20-year career there, she built a reputation as a fierce negotiator, having bargaining numerous collective agreements in the auto and metalworking sectors. She is considered a pragmatic, results-oriented labour leader.
CISL Congress, May 2010
In 1997, she left FIOM in Milan and became a regional leader for CGIL in the Lombardy region. In 2005, she founded the Italian women’s rights movement “Let’s Get Out of Silence” movement. On her election earlier this month, she said full women’s rights must be a condition for democracy in Italy and the demeaning issue of prostitution must find a place on the national agenda, an obvious reference to Berlusconi’s style.
She was elected a member of the CGIL’s 10-member national governing board in 2008, became the federation’s deputy general secretary at the May 2010 Congress, and was Epifani’s choice to succeed him earlier this month.
Camusso will often be paired in her new duties with Emma Marcegaglia, the leader of the industrial employers’ federation Confindustria. The two women share a mutual respect for one another other, with Marcegaglia saying early this month she has “a very positive opinion” of Camusso.