27. SYNDICALISM AND THE COUNCILS

Are we syndicalists? Is the movement of workshop delegates which, began in Turin nothing but one more local variation of syndicalism. Can this movement really be seen as the minor disturbance which heralds the devastations of the tornado of home-produced syndicalism - that conglomeration of demagogy, insistent pseudo-revolutionary verbalism, undisciplined, irresponsible enthusiasm and maniacal excitement on the part of a few individuals of limited intelligence (little brains but big mouths) who have in the past sometimes succeeded in pillaging the will ofthe masses - and will it take its place in the annals of the Italian workers' movement labelled: Italian syndicalism.

- - - - -

In the concrete experience of proletarian revolutions, syndicalysm has been an utter failure. The trade unions have shown that they are organically incapable of embodying the proletarian dictatorship. The union's normal course of development is marked by a continuous decline in the revolutionary spirit of the masses. The union increases their material strength, but weakens or completely destroys their appetite for conquest; their elan vital wilts, and heroic intransigences is succeeded by the practice of opportunism - "bread and butter demands". An increase in quantity results in a decrease in quality, and a racile accommodation to capitalist forms; it results in the workers acquiring a stingy, narrow, petty- and middle-bourgeois mentality. And yet the basic task of the union is to recruit the masses in their "entirety", and absorb all the workers in industry and agriculture into its ranks. So the means are not adapted to the ends - and since means are anyway nothing but a moment of the end which is accomplished, which is realized, one must conclude that trade unionism is not a means to revolution, ie not a moment of the proletarian revolutìon, is not the revolution in the process of being accomplished and realized: trade unionism ie revolutionary only to the extent that it is grammatically possible to link the two expressions.

- - - - -

Trade unionism stands revealed as nothing other than a form of capitalìst society, not a potential successor to that society. It organizes workers not as producers, but as wage-earners, i.e. as creatures of the capitalist, private property regime, selling the commodity labour. Trade unionism combines workers on the basis of the tools they use or the material they transform; in other words, trade unionism combines workers on the basis of the form that the capitalist régime, the régime of economic individualism, impresses on them. The use of one tool rather than another, and the transformation of one material rather than another, brings to light different capacities and attitudes to work and to earnings; the worker becomes fixed in his particular capacity and attitude, and sees his job not as a moment of production, but simply as a means of earning a livelihood.

The industrial or craft union, by combining the worker wíth his comrades in the same craft or industry, with men who use the same tools or transform the same material as himself, helps to foster this mentality, so that the worker is even less likely to see himself as a producer. He is led instead to consider himself as a "commodity" whose price, whose value, is set by, the free play of competition in a national and international market.

The worker can see himself as a producer only if he sees himself as an inseparable part of the whole labour system which is concentrated in the object being manufactured, and only ìf he experiences the unity of the industrial process which in toto demands collaboration between manual workers, skilled workers, administrative employees, engineers and technical directors. The worker will see himself as a producer if - after he has become psychologically part of a particular productive proceess in aparticular factory (e.g. in a car plantin Turin) and has come to think of himself as a necessary and indispensable factor in the actívity ofthe social complex producing the car - he can now go one stage further and comprehend the whole of the Turin car-manufacturing process. If he can comprehend Turin as one production unit characterized by the car; see a large part of the general productive activity of Turin as existing and developing simply as a result of the existence and development of the car industry; and so see the workers in these general productive activities as themselves belonging to the car industry, for the simple reason that they create the necessary and sumfficient conditions for that industry's existence. Startíng off from the original cell, the factory, seen as a unit, as an act that creates a particular product, the worker proceeds to the comprehension of ever vaster units, right up to the level of the nation itself - which is in its entirety a gigantic apparatus of production, characterized by its exports, by the sum of wealth it exchanges for. an equivalent sum of wealth coming in from every part of the world, from the various other gígantic apparatuses of production into which the world is divided. At this point the worker has become a producer, for he has acquired an awareness of his role in the process of production, at all its levels, from the workshop to the nation and the world. At this point he is aware of his class; he becomes a communist because productivity does not require private property; he becomes a revolutionary, because he sees the capitalist, the private property, owner, as a dead hand, an encumbrance on the productive process which must be done away with. At this point he arrives at a conception of the "State", i.e. he conceives a complex organization of society, a concrete form of society, because this is nothíng but the form of the gigantic apparatus of productíon which reffects - through all the novel superior links and relations and functions inherent in its very enormity - the life of the workshop: which represents, in a harmonized and híerarchical fashion, the complex of conditions needed for the survival and development of his industry, his workshop, and even his person as a producer.

_ _ _ _ _

The Italian practice of pseudo-revolutionary syndicalism, lìke the practice of reformist trade unionism, is negated by the Turin movement of workshop delegates; in fact, it is negated twice over, since reformist trade unionism represents an advance over pseudo-revolutionary syndicalism. For if the trade union is alone in being able to get "bread and butter" for the workers; in being able to guarantee, within the context of a bourgeois régime, a stable wage market and eliminate some of the most dangerous uncertainties as far as the worker's physical and moral ìntegrity is concerned; then it is obvious that reformist and not pseudo-revolutionary practice has obtained these results. To try to squeeze more out ofan instrument than it can give, or, to foster the belief that it can deliver more than its nature would allow it is simply to commìt blunders and indulge in purely demagogic activity. The pseudo-revolutionary syndicalists in Italy are frequently to be found discussing (as for instance in the railway men's union) whether they should restrict membership of their union to "revolutìonaries" only,to the audacious minority dragging the cold and indifferent masses after it. In other words, these people end up by rejecting the basic principle of trade unionism, which is organization ofthe masses in their entirety. For deep down and unconsciously they are aware of the inanity of "their" propaganda; aware that the trade union ís incapable of giving the worker's consciousness a concretely revolutionary form. For they have never considered the problem of the proletarian revolution in clear and precise terms and, although they uphold the producers' theory, they have never experienced the mentality of producers. These people are demagogues, not revolutionaries; they are agitators stirring the flood that they have excited with their fatuous fiery speeches; they do not educate the worker or shape his consciousness.

Would the delegates' movement have arísen and developed sìmply to replace Buozzi and D'Aragona by Borghi?38 The delegates' movement is the negation of every form of individualism and personalism. It is the beginning of a great historical process, a process in which the working masses will acquire consciousness of their indissoluble unity based on production and on the concrete activity of labour, and will provide this consciousness with an organic form, by building up their own leadership, by throwing up these leaders from the depths of their own ranks, so that they will be as it were the conscious expression of a precise goal to be accomplished, of a great historical process which-notwithstandìng the errors that individuals may commit and the crises that natíonal and international conditione may precipitate must and wìll culminate in the dictatorshìp of the proletariat, in the Communist International.

Syndicalism has never once expressed such a conception of the producer, nor of the process of historical development of the producer society; it has never once indicated that this leadership, this line, should be impressed upon the workers' organization. It has theorized a particular form of organizatíon - the craft and industrial union - and has built, to be sure, on a reality, but a reality that was given its form by the capitalist régime of free competition and private ownership of labour-power. Therefore it has simply constructed a Utopia, a great castle of abstractions.

The idea of the Councils system, based on the power of the working masses organized around their place of work, around production unìts, arose as a result of the concrete historical experiences of the Russian proletariat; it is the fruit of the theoretical labours of Russian communist comrades, who are revolutionary socialists, not syndicalists.

Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 8 November 1919, Vol. 1, No. 25.

Appendix, 28.

THE PROGRAMME OF THE WORKSHOP DELEGATES

This is the programme adopted by the first quasi-general assembly of the Turin factory delegates. It is more than just a programme; it is meant to be an exposition of the concepts which have underpinned the rise of a new form of proletarian power. The exposition is propagandist in intention, and is designed to establish a basis for discussion with the proletarian organs which emerged earlier.

This first assembly, therefore, does not reserve to itself the right to formulate a definitive programme, because this is a programme for revolutionary activity and ought therefore to be open to continuous radical innovation. Its purpose rather is to set in train in Italy a practical experiment in the achievement of communist society.

It is first-comers who characteristically claim all rights for themselves; this is the practice of some ofthose men who would like to embody in themselves all the activities of the trade unions and to convince everyone that the union with its various functions can cover the whole of social life.

We ourselves, through the reality of our power and our functions, are a primary negation ofthis theory. It is not a theoretical negation, not an artificial construct of the human mind. Our power has arisen through the spontaneous will of the factory proletariat, which is tired of having to submit - despite all the fine talk of democracy - to a discipline and a formulation of guiding concepts in which it has no say. It is tired of always having to be on ite guard against being carried down a road which is not that of revolution, as a result of the tendencies or weaknesses of individual men.

It is this sharp reaction which has resulted in factory delegates appearing in every single nation. The rise of the delegates shows that negotiation about prices in the context of bourgeois competition, and administration of the means of production and masses ofmen, are two different functions. The first has what might be called a commercial objective: it consists in establishing the value of the labour of a category of workers, on a given bourgeois market, in order to sell it at the best possible price (a function exercised by the trade unions). The second has the potential objective of preparing men, bodies and concepts, through a continuous pre-revolutionary process of scrutiny, so that they may be equipped to replace the employer's authority in the factory and impose a new discipline on social lífe. This is the function of the delegates who, through the very mechanism whereby they are formed, represent the most democratic kind of power, It is with the aim of establishing precise demarcations between the activities and competence of these two functions that the programme has been preceded by a declaration of fundamental principles.

The example of the fatal conflict between trade-union leaders and the power of the councils in Hungary has led us to attempt to prevent a repetition of the phenomenon in the Italian revolution, by defining at the outset the relations between the two functions and allotting to each the tasks that ìts constitution, governing principle and daily practice warrant.

elected nothing other than the executors

The principle of the democratic mandate must prevail ín every form of power: the elected must be nothing other than the executors of the will of the masses. This principle is faithfully put into practice by the delegates.

In this system there is not yet universal suffrage, as a result of a variety of contingent factors. For example, there still exists a bourgeoisie wíth numerous agents; there still exist unconscious proletarians, who are not members of a trade union. While these latter can and must have the right to express their will by voting, they should not have the right to stand for election: they cannot be invested with authority over the unions, of which they are unconscious, or over socíal life, which they do not understand.

But the delegates, precisely because they are elected by all the proletarians, constitute a social power; and because they are union members elected by all the proletarians (who as conscious workers will undoubtedly win authority over the masses) they can represent the will of the union members themselves within the organizations.

never a definite programm, continuous regional/national revision

The programme, we repeat, cannot be and will never be definitive. Successive regional and then national assemblies will have to revise it continuously and develop the ideas contained in it.

In the meantime, to secure its widespread distribution and discussion, the delegates' assembly has adopted the following resolutions.

Delegates' assembly resolutions

1. The factory delegates of Turin, meeting in an assembly held on 31 October l9l9, drew up the enclosed programme concerning the powers of councils and delegates. They decided:

(a) to request its publication ín all proletarian newspapers and journals;

(b) to distribute it ìn factories all over Italy;

(c) to form industrial commissions on the basis of the former internal commissions, to examine its application in different industries;

(d) to have it discussed and eventually adopted by all organizations and co-operatives whose watchword is the class struggle.

2. The assembly of the Turin factory delegates resolves to call a regional assembly, as soon as delegates have appeared throughout the region, to review the programme and prepare a first regional or national congress.

Declaration of Principles

1. The factory delegates are the sole and authentic social (economic and political) representatives of the proletarian class, by virtue of their being elected by all workers at their workplace on the basis of universal suffrage. At the various levels of their constitution, the delegates embody the union of all workers as realized in organs of production (work-crew, workshop, factory, union of the factories in a given industry, union of the productive enterprises in a city, union of the organs of production in the mechanical and agricultural industry of a district, a province, a region, the nation, the world) whose authority and social leadership are invested in the councils and concil system.

2. The workers united in the council system recognize the part layed by the craft and industrial unions in the history of the Class struggle, together with the need for them to carry on in their role of organizing individual categories of workers to obtain improvements in wages and hours for as long as the competitive labour market, as constituted under the capitalist regime, survives. They see the unions as an indispensable form of organization, in that they represent a higher union of workers who share the same individual interests stemming from their exercise of the same functions within the order of capitalist production. They maintain that all workers should belong to a trade union.

--++ workers organized at the point of production

3. The objectives ofthe workers' movement must arise directly from the workers organized at the point of production, and be expressed via the factory delegates.

The craft and industrial unions should continue to exercise their present function, which is to negotiate with employer organizations on behalf of the collectivity to obtain satisfactory wages, hours and working conditions for entire categories, dedicating all the competence they have acquired in past struggles to drawing up clear, effective agreements that faithfully reflect the current requirements of labour and the consciousness of the factory workers.

struggle is to conquer public power and eliminate private property

On the other hand, the councils embody the power of the working class organized on a plant basis, as the antithesis to the empployer's authority which is manifested within the plant itself. In social terms, they embody the action of the whole of the solidarized proletariat in its struggle to conquer public power and eliminate private property.

parliamentarism & bourgeois concept of citizen rejected

4. Union members within the councils accept without question that discipline and order in economic movements (whether partial or collective) must be maintained by the unions - provided, however, that the objectives for the unions are given by the factory delegates, as representatives of the working masses. They reject as artificial parliamentarist and false any other eystem that the unions might wish to follow on determining the wishes of their membership. Workers democracy is not based on numbers and the bourgeois concept of citizen, but on the functions of labour and the order that the working class adopts naturally in the process of skilled industrial production and in the factories.

5. The factory delegates proclaim themselves ready to confront any resistance whatsoever which seeks to curtail the right of their specific organs to scrutinize the internal affairs of the proletarian trade organizations within the factory.

6. The representatives undertake to direct all their propaganda energies to bring about the merger into a single national union of all the organizations in a particular category which are not yet confederated, but which base their actions on the clase struggle to achieve the aims of the communist revolution.

All the craft and industrial unions of the Italian proletariat must affiliate to the General Confederation of Labour. The delegates appeal to all working comrades who voted for them in a spirit of communist conscíousness, to use all their powers of personal persuasion to strengthen the organizations of which they are members. If, as they proclaim, workers have really attained a fully mature class consciousness, they must convince themselves of the need to build a single great union of all Italian proletarian forces. They must play a greater role in the affairs of the unions, infuse them with the ideas that govern the council system and work towards eliminating all the difficulties that stand in the way of proletarian unity at thìs stage. When the workers have infused today's various dissenting organizations with that same spirit of conquest and desire for self-government and proletarian power that governs the council system, the fusion of these organizations will require no more than a simple administrative act.

call to break with orgs based on religious or nationalist principles

On the other hand, the delegates call upon working comrades to break with organizations that are based on religious or nationalist principles, both of which are utterly foreign to the functions and tasks of workers organizations.

7. The assembly of all the Turin plant delegates asserts with pride and assurance that their election and the establishment of the council system represents the first concrete indication of the communist revolution in Italy. The assembly pledges to devote all the means at the disposal of individual representatives and the council system to ensure that the system of workers' councils, made up of delegates elected on a shop and work-crew basis, should spread irresistibly throughout Italy, and that within the shortest possible time a national congress ofworker and peasant delegates from all over Italy should be called.

GENERAL REGULATIONS: Appointment of Delegates and their Powers

ratio between numbers of workers and numbers of candidates

l. Delegates are appointed on a factory workshop basis, in accordance with the number of work-crews; their number, fixed provisionally for the moment by the internal commissions, will be determined finally by the factory council, which will carry out a thorough survey of work operations. Council assemblies will lay down what the ratio should be between numbers of workers and numbers of candidates.

precise weight of specialized categories

Management personnel will be divided into the following categories: engineers, technical supervisors, designers, departmental secretaries, and clerical staff attached to internal administration, sales, accounts and auxiliary services. *The precise weight of the various specialized categories in this sector of the productive process will be determined by the factory assembly.*

2. All the proletarians in the factory, both manual and. intellectual workers, have the right to vote.

revoked mandate: ineligible for three successive assemblies, suspended for one election

3. Members of any trade union that is committed to the class struggle are eligible as candidates. A delegate whose mandate is revoked is ineligible for three successive assemblies; his right of candidature is thus suspended for one election.

outgoing delegates organize elections (every 6 months)

4. The first elections are to be held under the auspices of the old-style internal commissions. The commissions elected will normally remain in office for six months; in the course of this period they may be replaced in part (in some shops) or en bloc throughout the factory, through the resignation of the delegates. It is up to the outgoing delegates' assembly to establish the norms for holding new elections, subject to their being in line with the general principles.

delegate subject to instant recall

5. The delegate must enjoy the confidence of his electorate at all times: he is therefore subject to instant recall. If he is repudiated by a half plus one of his electorate, or by a majority of the factory assembly, the delegate is obliged to seek renewal of his mandate. If under these circumstances he fails to have his mandate renewed, the factory assembly will refuse to recognize his delegate's rights.

voting is during working hours

6. Voting will take place by secret ballot during working hours. Counting must begin at once and in public, and the results be announced immediately. The candidate's name on the ballot slip must be handwritten. While votiing takes place, no worker from another part of the factory may enter the shop. If the result and its validity are in doubt, the vote must be taken again in the presence of the Council secretary.

7. The factory council must meet within two days ofthe elections. Temporarily, the council will meet in the rooms of the nearest socialist club. When the council wins recognition in the factory, the assembly should be held in the factory itself. Rules for the convening of council meetings will be drawn up by the council itself.

8. The delegate has a two fold responsibilìty: (a) he represents the trade-union members in his workshop and is responsible for the affairs of the particular organization of which he is a member; (b) he represents all the workers in his shop, being responsible for their defence in economic matters and for their social activity.

delegates chose executive committee amongst themselves

9. The factory council therefore represents the whole of the proletaríat in the factory. Delegates choose from their own number the factory executive committee, which they invest with an executive mandate within the factory itself, and a representatíve mandate in the council assemblies.

1O. In the general assembly of all the local delegates, on the other hand, delegates represent the interests of their own category and of local production.

11. In the assemblies of all the executive committees of an area, on the other hand, delegates represent the interests of the whole of the factory proletariat and of production in social life.

12. Delegates in a particular district who are members of the same craft or industrial union will meet in craft and industrial assemblies. The assemblies will appoint from their own number the executive committee of the local branch of the union.

Delegates and Unions

13. Assemblies of workers in a particular category are convened either on the initiative of delegates representing more than one tenth of union members or by the branch council, They must be called as a matter of course whenever a dispute arises affecting the category.

secretaries of administrative & propaganda sections proven negotiators

14. Secretaries of union administrative and propaganda sections must have proven capacity to conduct negotiations with employer organizations, and they must be seen as the executors of the will of the trade-union members, as it is expressed in the union and the factory council. They are responsible to the executive committees.

15. The drawing up of agreements and the negotiations with the employer organizations are delegated to the secretaries themselves, assisted by representatives of the executìve committees.

The ratification of economic agreements concerning a category is effected by the category assembly.

all agreements with employers must be ratified

No agreement can he seen as valid until it has been ratified.

16. Before an agreement is put to the assembly for approval, one copy must have been sent to each factory concerned.

no criticizing of a union of which one is not a member

17. Thus agreements will be discussed in the delegates' assembly, and delegates who are not members of the union which led a particular agitation will also have the right to vote on the agreement reached in it. In the category assemblies, on the other hand, the delegates do not enjoy the right to criticize the members and procedures of a union which is not their own.

18. However, the delegates gathered in a category assembly do have the right to discuss and criticize the procedures of unions which are not committed to the class struggle.

The Duties of the Factory Delegates

1. The most important and delicate of the delegate's duties is inside the factory. He must at all times be the faithful interpreter of the feelings of his comrades before representatives of the employer's authority and within the council.

The workshop is the source of his power, which resides in the solidarity his comrades express in supporting his actions and in standing by his recommendations in a disciplined fashion. Such solidarity and discipline are forthcoming only when the electorate see him as a genuine exponent of their feelings.

delegate work. may down tools if presence outside workship demanded

2. The delegates work. The assertion of their power in the factory should be limited, in this sense, to ensuring that they may down tools in particular circumstances which demand their presence outside the workshop.

delegates excercize control to:

3. The role of the delegate during working hours may be summed up in the word control.

He must exercise control: 39

ensure adherence to agreements, resolve disputes (with management)

(a) to ensure that existing work agreements are faithfully adhered to and to resolve any disputes that might arise between the work-force in the shop and representatives of management.

defend interests of workers

(b) to defend the interests and personal feelings of the workers in the event of foremen abusing their power, by mis-assessing work unjustly or through incapacity, ín the event of changes in the work process or in the event of a crisis of production on the market.

(c) to maintain order on the job, in the face of either management provocation or bad conduct on the part of dissenters from the wishes of the majority;

obtain inteligence on value of capital employed, profit, increase in output

(d) to obtain precise intelligence on: (i) the value of capital employed, in his own shop; (ii) the output of his shop ín relation to all known costs. (iii) the possible increase in output that could be achieved.

prevent removal of fixed capital

(e) to prevent the capitalists from removing any of the fixed capital invested in the plant.

study bourgeois systems of production & work processes, encourage comrades to do so

4. The delegate should study and encourage his comrades to study the bourgeois systems of production and work processes, inviting criticisms and suggestions that will facilitate work by speeding up production. It must be driven home to all that communist equality can be won only through an intensive productive effort, and that higher living standards will flow not from disorder in production and a relaxation of work discipline, but rather from an improved and more equal distribution of social obligations and rewards, obtained through making labour compulsory and equalizing rates of pay.

study internal technical innovations proposed by management

5. In the light of the above considerations, the delegates should study internal technical innovations proposed by management, and not take a decision before having discussed the question with their comrades; they should invite them to accept such innovations, so long as any temporary damage to the workers' interests is balanced by similar sacrifices on the part of the industrialists, and provided the innovation will result in an improvement in the process of production.

pressure management to force it to respect safety & hygiene legislation

Hence they should put pressure on management to force it to respect legislation concerning safety, hygiene and workshop facilities.

Towards Workers' Schools

concil: school on factory premises to improve workers' professionalk skills

6. It is up to the council to organize a school on the factory premises for all workers who wish to perfect their professionaI skills. *Capable teachers must be found in the factory itself, and rooms and equipment must be provided by management.*

7. It is also up to the council to ensure that management provides an organic system of education for apprentices, and to be vigilant in defence of their interests.

council: intervene in workers promotion to unmask it

8. The council will also have to intervene when workers are promoted, to unmask cases of favouritism and denounce it as a weapon of class struggle employed by the bosses.

delegates obliged to hold frequent referenda on social and technical issues

9. Backward or indifferent workshop delegates need to be shaken up by frequent elections and referenda. All delegates are obliged to hold frequent referenda in their shops on social and technical issues and to hold frequent meetings to explain the principles and advice emanating from proletarian organs.

1O. No council has the right to break a work agreement without having first obtained the approval of the assembly of category delegates, and through it the executive committee of the branch.

11. When a dispute with management in a workshop has been settled by the delegate, or becomes a matter of principle, or is due to a conflict of interest between workshops, the delegate must report the case at once to the factory commissariat's office. Throughout the period of the dispute he is excused work.

THE EXECUTIVE COMMISSARIAT (EC) OF A FACTORY: Appointment, Functions, Powers

1. The factory council will appoint a certain proportion of its member delegates to execute decisions and negotiate with management: these will form the executive commissariat of the factory. This body will take the place of the former internal commission, and should receive corresponding recognition from the management of the factory.

2. The proportionality and election arrangements will be decided by the individual councils and assemblies.

delegates forming EC exused from work during EC duty

3. A fixed number of members delegated to serve on the commissariat will be excused work for their term of duty and stationed permanently in an appropriate executive commissariat office, to receive complaints from delegates, examine them, reject or accept them support them where necessary with the power which the force of the entire factory confers upon them.

4. Delegates of the commissariat should be present at all conversations between union secretaries and employers' bodies in the factory.

every evening EC members asses situation in factory and work done

5. Every evening the members of the commissariat are called upon to assess the situation in the factory and the work done by their comrades.

inept & incapable exposed before the council. slow driven.

6. Delegates to the E.C. must give all possible support to the work of control, study and propaganda carried out by the delegates encouraging and driving the slow and accusing the inept and incapable before the council.

7. Members of the E.C. may remain in office continuously for the duration of the council: they remain in office during elections and for the period immediately following, in order to hand over their powers and current business to the incoming commissariat.

Members who suffer a vote of no confidence in the council automatically lose their mandate.

EC and management equal rights to post notices

8. The E.C. and management have equal rights to post notices in the factory.

newspapers freely distributed inside factory during breaks

9. The E.C. should ensure that newspapers are freely distributed inside the factory during work breaks.

EC publish fortnightly bulleting with stats on factory operations

1O. The E.C. should try to publish a fortnightly factory bulletin that will gather together statistics designed to extend the workers' knowledge of factory operations, explain the work done by the E.C. and the factory council, reprint news items concerning the factory from sectional journals, etc.

small factories can join with others in same industrial sector

If the factory is too small it can join with others in the same industrial sector

setup social+savings fund to establish factory canteen

11. The E.C. should also try to set up a factory social and savings Fund, with the aim of establishing a co-operative factory canteen in conjunction with the local Co-operative Alliance.

EC keep daily log-book of own activities, weekly to council for approval

12. The E.C. should keep a daily log-book recording its own activities and submit it weekly to the council for its approval.

EC distribute propaganda and research duties

13. The E.C. will distribute propaganda and research duties between its own members and the delegates.

council convened by EC each week, exceptional daily

14. The factory council should be convened by the E,C. each week if possible (Saturday half-day)40 to hear the E.C.'s report, to assess the situation in the factory and the morale of the workforce, and to make recommendations to the E.C. on matters concerning the external interests of the factory or the category. In exceptional circumstances the council could meet daily.

Publications, Notices, Reports, Meetings

single newspaper as sole political daily for all notices/reports

1. The Turin delegates' assembly resolves to recognize the newspaper Avanti! as the sole political daily of the region and to seek space in it for the publication of notices, reports and agenda of delegates' meetings. It has no confidence in the publication of other newspapers, which would drain the social assets.

pulication of articles propagating new ideas in all proleterian periodical publications

2. The assembly resolves, moreover, to request publication of articles propagating these new ideas in all proletarian periodical publications. The replies of the periodicals to the delegates' request should be read at the next assembly.

Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 8 November 1919, Vol. I, No. 25. (On 25 July 1920, Gramsci referred to this text as being written by the "Gruppo di Studio" of the Factory Delegates movement, though his own influence admits of no doubt.)