Victory Consolidated

As Italy's biggest industrial establishment, Turin's great Fiat works (automobiles, steel) is a sensitive testing ground of the temper of Italian labor. There last year appeared the first major crack in Communist control of the Italian workers, when the Communist-dominated labor federation, CGIL, lost the majority it had consistently polled since World War II (TIME, April 11, 1955). Could the non-Communist unions consolidate their victory this year?

Last week, the answer was in, and it was a necessary yes. The 52,000 Fiat workers who voted (out of 80,000) gave the two free trade unions, CISL and UIL, 69.4% of their vote and 133 of the 178 seats on the trade union committee. The Communists got nine seats less than last time, though they waged an all-out campaign, led by activists carefully trained in a six-month course at Palmiro Togliatti Institute. Though the Communists labeled the free trade unions "docile to the will of il padrone (the boss),'' Fiat workers had come to see that they won pay raises under the free unions. Nor did they lose man-hours and pay packets on wasteful strikes (which were reduced by 90% in 1955). The ability of the free unions to stand on the record was made easier by the wise policy of the Fiat works management, which has been financing new homes for the company's workers, and pays nearly 80% of all Fiat workers more than the contract minimum.

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