Trade unions and global restructuring: No Turning Back! Ten years after the victory of the Italian water movement against privatization.

Ten years ago on 12 and 13 June 2011, the Italian water movement gained a decisive victory against privatisation in a nation-wide referendum. For the first time in 16 years, it had again been possible to secure the quorum of at least 50 per cent plus one voter participating, necessary to make the referendum legally valid. In fact, just over 57 per cent of the electorate, more than 26 million Italians, cast their vote. The majorities in relation to the two questions on water were even more impressive. 95.35 per cent yes on the first question abolishing the legal obligation to privatise the management of water services; 95.80 per cent yes on the second question, removing the legal right of private investors to make seven per cent of profit on their running of water services (Fattori 2011). Together, both questions removed the rationale for private involvement in water distribution. In this blog post, drawing on my new book Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe (Zed Books/Bloomsbury, 2021) I will reflect on the underlying reasons of this success as well as the wider implications for the struggle over the human right to water.

A number of key factors can be identified underpinning the success of the Italian water movement. First, its campaign was based on a broad alliance, coordinated by the Italian Forum of Water Movements at the national level. Both mainstream trade unions (e.g. FP-CGIL) as well as rank-and-file trade unions (e.g. USB, Cobas) supported the struggle against privatisation; partly, because privatisation of water services often implies downward pressure on salary levels and working conditions, but partly also because they understood that as trade unions they have to look beyond the workplace and at society’s needs more generally, with access to drinkable water and sanitation being important human rights.

Moreover, environmental groups were part of the alliance (e.g. Legambiente, WWF Italia). They realised that whenever the profit motive is part of water management, the environment is likely to suffer. A number of important organisations and individuals from within the Catholic Church also strongly supported the referendum campaign. They understood water as a fundamental source of life, which should not be treated as a tradable commodity in order to make a profit. Finally, it was citizens’ committees up and down the country, which organised and rebelled against the drastic water price increases of 100 per cent and more resulting from private participation in the management of municipal water services. Together with a network of municipalities and various development NGOs, this alliance established a formidable force at the national as well as regional and local levels across Italy, ensuring a large turnout on the days of the referendum.

The second important factor was the water movement’s refusal to form a close alliance with political parties. Activists realised that they had to keep water out of the electoral arena and make the referendum into an issue beyond party politics in order to secure the votes from both people on the left as well as the centre-right. Since the early 1990s, centre-right and centre-left coalitions had been interchangeably in power pursuing similar policies of neo-liberal restructuring (Cozzolino 2021: 101-27). Winning elections and the benefits coming with government had become the sole purpose of political parties, while struggles over alternative policies receded in the background. It was, therefore, important to keep the referendum campaign outside this political party competition.

Third, the Italian water movement excelled at developing imaginative strategies. When the political parties refused to implement the referendum result fully in relation to the guaranteed profit of private investors, activists devised the strategy of ‘civil obedience’ and deducted seven per cent from their water bills. It was called ‘civil obedience’ rather than ‘civil disobedience’, because the initiators argued that by withholding the seven per cent of their water charges, they actually complied with national law resulting from the referendum.

Finally, the Italian water movement’s emphasis on regarding water as a commons, to be jointly governed, jointly enjoyed and jointly preserved for future generations provided a clear alternative. It directly challenges the capitalist focus on commodifying ever more areas and submitting them to the profit logic of the market. Hence, it implies a move towards an alternative economic model, in which the means of production are held collectively. This focus is combined with a new, participatory form of democracy in the running of water services. Precisely in a situation perceived by some within the water movement as post-democratic, the focus on a new form of democracy proved attractive. “It is written water, it is read democracy” (Fantini 2014: 42) was a key slogan of the campaign. In other words, it is a new understanding of democracy and a new way of how to run the economy and, importantly, of how these two dimensions are closely and internally related, which brings with it a transformative dimension.

The victory in the Italian water referendum was significant in Italy. Citizens had demonstrated that it is possible to change policies despite the centre-left, centre-right political party collusion around neo-liberal economics. The importance of this victory, however, also went far beyond Italy encouraging activists to oppose neo-liberal capitalism elsewhere. It was the success in the Italian water referendum, which convinced the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) to go ahead with launching the first European Citizens’ Initiative on ‘Water and Sanitation are a Human Right’, collecting almost 1.9 million signatures across the EU in 2012 and 2013.

As I write in Chapter 3 of Fighting for Water, capital has come back and continues to challenge the outcome of the referendum. Struggles for public water are ongoing. The victory by the Italian water movement ten years ago, however, has had a lasting impact on struggles against exploitation in Italy and beyond. The Italian referendum victory had convinced activists across Europe that broad-based campaigns organised from below can challenge capitalism successfully. It has transformed our understanding of what is possible in the struggle against capitalist exploitation. There is no turning back!