Unorganized metalworkers outmilitated a collaborationist union leadership

Evidence

Although it suffered a series of massive defeats in 1907, which were followed by years which saw the apogee of Giolittian “industrial peace” and the rapid growth of a collaborationist trade-union movement, nevertheless in 1912 the metal-workers (those not organised in unions!) embarked upon a strike “to the end”. This was defeated, after 75 days of struggle; but the metalworkers came out again-this time led by the union, the FIOM in the spring of 1913, and after a 93-day strike won a considerable victory (partly as a result of government intervention against the employers’ dangerous intransigence). — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 59

Categorization

• XREF: Empirical grounding for the later contrast between ‘spontaneous’ rank-and-file struggle and the caution of organized reformist leadership — a mechanism Gramsci theorizes in his hegemony notes. — connects to: US unions traded bargaining power for collaboration with Fordist production — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 798; Rank-and-file shop committees turned strikes into organs of workers’ control — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 475
• QUESTION: The parenthetical about government intervention against ‘the employers’ dangerous intransigence’ is striking — is Gramsci arguing the state sided with workers against capital?