93. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, November 30, 19551
SUBJECT
- Conversation with Giulio Pastore
PARTICIPANTS
- Hon. Giulio Pastore, General Secretary of CISL
- Signor Manlio Brosio, Ambassador of Italy
- G—Mr. Robert Murphy, Deputy Under Secretary of State
- G—Mr. Daniel Goott, Special Assistant for International Labor Affairs
- WE—Mr. Richard B. Freund, Mr. James B. Engle
Mr. Murphy began the conversation by saying his interest in Italian Trade Unions had begun in 1944 when he was in Italy for several months as Political Advisor of the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean area. He had heard of Mr. Pastore at the time the Allied forces entered Rome and he remembered that the Allies had liberated Mr. Pastore from prison. After expressing his appreciation of Mr. Murphy’s interest and memory, Mr. Pastore said he wished to thank the United States Government for the aid and encouragement it had given to the democratic labor movement in Italy since the War. The succeeding conversation covered the following points:
Reasons for the Recent Gains of the Free Trade Unions
Mr. Murphy congratulated Mr. Pastore for his great success in building up the free trade union CISL at the expense of the Communists. Mr. Pastore said that while the free unions have benefited from U.S. encouragement and the application of OSP screening criteria, the real essence of the present trend away from the Communists in the trade union field was that the conscience of the Italian working class was becoming increasingly more democratic. More and more workers were deserting the Communist CGIL because they were persuaded that a union divorced from political parties and employing democratic methods was in the best interest of the working class. Mr. Pastore thought that the shift toward free unions involved a real change in the outlook of the Italian worker. The Communists have rationalized the shift as the temporary effect of managerial and U.S. intervention into Italian trade union affairs.
Political Effect of Progress by Free Trade Unions
Mr. Freund inquired whether recent free union gains may be expected to have a favorable effect on the administrative elections which will be held next spring. After asserting confidently that there will be no “catastrophe” in the administrative elections, Mr. Pastore said the gains of the free unions will be translated into gains by democratic political parties at the polls in proportion as these parties are able to satisfy the claims of the working class as expressed by the free unions. If the democratic parties, through policy and legislation, demonstrate that they are working for the real good of the working man, they will gain votes in 1956. However, if they fail to identify themselves with working class objectives and make no progress toward realizing these objectives through concrete political action, they will probably lose votes. Some workers who have recently switched [Page 312] their votes in shop stewards’ elections from the CGIL to CISL may still vote for the Communists in a political election if they are not satisfied that the democratic parties are trying to do something for them. Likewise successful political action by the democratic parties during the next few months would attract votes for those parties from among workers who still voted for the CGIL in the last shop stewards’elections.
Request for an Increase in U.S. Immigration Quotas for Italy
Mr. Pastore said that Italy’s basic problem was unemployment and that while the number of unemployed has dropped in the last few years, it can never be cut to manageable proportions unless there is an expansion of emigration outlets. The official figures on unemployment oscillate between 1,800,000 and 2,100,000. No estimate of less that 1,500,000 is realistic. In addition there is an equal number of “underemployed” workers. Mr. Pastore said that the U.S. could provide great relief for this problem and score a propaganda success in Italy if we either (a) increased our annual quota for Italian immigrants, or (b) allotted to Italy the unused numbers from other Western European quotas (he thought there were about 75,000 such unused numbers each year). The fact that Italy has such a low quota as compared with other European countries is cited by the Communists as evidence of U.S. discrimination against Italy and particularly against the Italian working class. In Mr. Pasture’s opinion the U.S. could easily absorb 75,000 Italians per year without detriment to the U.S. economy. Such an annual flow of emigrants out of Italy each year would have salutary political and economic effects in Italy. He wished to point out that he understood that since further applications under RRP would shortly be halted (because the present waiting list exceeds the number of visas to be issued under that program before December 31, 1956), the RRP outlet is for all practical purposes closed and Italy now has only the small regular immigration quota.
UIL–CISL Relations
Mr. Murphy inquired about the state of relations prevailing between CISL and the other free trade union UIL. Mr. Pastore replied that no improvement has taken place recently and that UIL now takes every opportunity to hit at CISL.UIL usually makes its attack against CISL in the factory just a day or so in advance of shop stewards’ elections. UIL employs the anti-clerical theme against CISL. UIL fights CISL just as much as it does CGIL with the result that there is a three-way battle in the trade union field. Mr. Pastore said that although the ICFTU has laid down the objective of a merger of the free unions in Italy it has set no date and UIL is actively opposing the objective itself. [Page 313] When queried concerning the basis for UIL differences with CISL, Pastore replied that it was not merely a question of personalities but of fundamental outlook on the role and function of trade unions. UIL takes the traditional Socialist view that the union must be tied to a political party which expresses in the political sphere the claims of the union. On the other hand CISL has always opposed ideological uniformity among its membership and it wishes to keep free of direct ties with political parties, so that the union is really a union (such as in the U.S.) and therefore is not merely an instrument of a party such as the CGIL is for the Italian Communists. Mr. Pastore pointed out the curious fact that despite UIL claims to represent democratic socialism, CISL has more Social Democrats in its membership than does UIL.
Pasture’s Request for Further OSP Aid to Italy
After expressing again his union’s appreciation for U.S. aid to Italy, and especially OSP contracts over the past few years, Mr. Pastore said he wished to assure us that no U.S. aid such as OSP could ever be considered “superfluous” in Italy. Every bit of it helped Italian workers. He hoped that OSP could continue.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 865.062/11–3055. Confidential. Drafted by Engle on December 5.↩