After the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the tariff war, and the hundred-hour war between India and Pakistan, now comes the twelve-day war, in which Israel has secured American support to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. The real outcome is still unknown. In the endless boasting that features regularly in the script for each daily episode of his global sitcom, Trump compares the hammer blow of his bunker-buster bombs to the atomic bomb that incinerated Hiroshima, ending the war with Japan. For others, including American agencies, Iran’s nuclear programme will only be delayed by a few months, and Tehran will now be even more determined to try to assemble its deterrent, triggering regional proliferation. What remains, on the American side, is the display of unrivalled military capability, a signal sent to all powers. Of course, no one in the chancelleries around the world weeps over this blow to the mullahs’ atomic plans. But a strong America, with its strategic bombers and aircraft carriers, though weakened by debt and the internal feud dividing it – and whose president, moreover, prides himself on deciding by instinct, is deliberately unpredictable, and heedless of his allies – is a cause for concern.
Europe, it is said, has no option but to play a balancing game, to keep Washington in NATO while embarking on its own rearmament, since it still heavily depends on the US military. The goal is a European pillar of the Alliance that can withstand American fluctuations. This is the 5% solution, touted as five for five: 5% of GDP spent on rearmament to guarantee Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty on mutual defence. Let us be clear. Well-meaning pacifist litanies are of little value here, and even less so the parliamentary trickery of their politics. They denounce rearmament, but when in government they vote for it; they reject five for five because it would be subordinate to American imperialism, but they call for common defence for European imperialism. On top of that, they are ambiguous about citizenship for immigrant proletarians. The only opposition to the rearmament of European imperialism is the communist and internationalist opposition. The only way forward is the unity of all proletarians, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or nationality.
The protracted Italian metalworkers’ contract dispute, which began a year ago, has revealed a structural problem in the employers’ camp. Dario Di Vico summarises the issue in the Corriere della Sera [May 19th], noting the division that has emerged among the employers associated with Federmeccanica.
Big and small
Some large companies have in fact been calling for a resolution to the dispute for some time, criticising its management as hamstrung by overly rigid schemes
. The Leonardo group is in the lead, flanked by other big names
in the sector full of defence orders
such as Fincantieri, or with lucrative contracts, such as Hitachi, Avio, and Baker Hughes (formerly Nuovo Pignone).
However, this negotiationist
camp is opposed by the great majority of medium, small, and even micro enterprises, more reluctant to agree to the union’s demands, especially the €280 wage increase, which they rejected from the outset. The sheer numerical weight of these smaller companies is overwhelming: although the association has a voting system that is partially proportional to contributions paid, the leadership cannot ignore the small companies that make up its mass base
. Di Vico reports that 80.6% of companies have fewer than 10 employees and 97% of companies have fewer than 50 employees.
While this is a structural problem for employers, another limitation is evident on the opposite side of the class divide: the resistance to the agreement on the part of small and medium-sized companies is not only motivated by the burdensome
nature of the demands, but also by the fact that employers are not very afraid of strikes
given the lack of trade union organisation in this sector of the working class.
This is the complex reality of the world of work on both sides. It is a reality that poses problems but also opens opportunities for trade union struggle. It is certainly possible to take advantage of these divisions among employers, but only if we work with determination for class unity, deploying our strengths in the service of an overall strategy: the prerequisite is to abandon the interclassist vision that has caused so many disasters over the decades and still persists.
A country for small businesses
The problem of the small size of businesses comes up in many commentaries, often linked to the issue of productivity. Confindustria president Emanuele Orsini spoke about this at the Trento Festival of Economics [May 25th]: to increase productivity, mergers are needed, given that there are now almost 4.3 million businesses, of which only 250,000 have more than nine employees
.
Fabio Panetta, the governor of the Bank of Italy, also returned to this topic in his latest Final Considerations, emphasising that a change is underway in this area: between 2013 and 2023, in the business sector, the share of employees in medium-sized and large companies has increased significantly, and the number of companies with at least 250 employees has increased by a third
. However, they remain a small minority. Panetta himself comments that this is a reaction by the production system to global changes that bodes well, but it is only a first step
.
Productivity and demographics
A recent book by Michele Tronconi links the issue of productivity not only to company size but also to demographics, starting with the title: Demografia e destino (Demography and destiny
) [2025]. The author, an entrepreneur whose family have been involved in textile production for generations, has held various positions in Confindustria. It is precisely from his experience in the field that he has made a telling admission: demographics have never warmed the hearts of us industrialists
, let alone engaged our thoughts
. This confirms what we have repeatedly referred to as the strategic short-sightedness of the bourgeoisie, whose heart is clearly more warmed by immediate financial results.
The problem of productivity is linked to this. First, it is organisational and technological innovation that increases labour productivity, and this depends mainly on businesses, and therefore on entrepreneurs
. But, ultimately, the birth rate hangs over all these issues: fewer young people means less innovation, and a smaller working population means less production
. He concludes: We must get moving because in a few years the demographic winter will increasingly reduce the working population; goodbye to higher production, innovation, and productivity
.
Workers and technicians wanted
Demographic trends in the labour market are alarming more than a few observers. With a certain emphasis, Leonardo Becchetti, professor of political economics at Tor Vergata, recalls that the terrible bubonic plague epidemic of 1300 had the effect of halving the European population within a century
; today, the demographic crisis is having a similar effect on the population and labour supply in our country
[Il Sole-24 Ore, April 18th].
More closely linked to the current situation is the analysis by the Fondazione Studi Consulenti del Lavoro (Labour Consultants Study Foundation) presented to the press on May 22nd under the title L’inverno demografico minaccia la competitività del Paese (Demographic winter, a threat to the country’s competitiveness
). It begins by acknowledging unprecedent-ed employment growth
in recent years, which, however, has left many indicators below the European average. But the outlook is alarming: The demographic trends currently underway point to a gradual reduction in the labour supply, which risks undermining the system’s ability to maintain current employment levels and, more generally, to sustain the pace of economic growth observed in recent years
. The situation is exacerbated by the ageing of the current workforce, which will require up to 3 million replacement hires over the next four years.
The difficulty of finding labour is already growing: it has doubled in five years, from 25.6% in 2019 to 48.2% in 2024; above all, it should be noted, due to a shortage of candidates
, a reason cited today by 31.7% of companies, compared with 12.2% in 2019.
Another aspect highlighted by the research is that the type of labour in short supply has also changed: While in 2019 the most difficult profiles to find were managers and intellectual professions, in 2024 technical and operational staff are at the top of the list
. This confirms that workers and technicians are fundamental components of the production system; the bourgeoisie needs them. This is a lever to be used in the trade-union struggle and, more generally, in the perspective of class-based politics.
Young workers without citizenship
When considering possible responses to the demographic problem, it is quite common to think of a mix of measures aimed at increasing the employment of young people, the elderly, and women, but in the end, the use of immigrants cannot be avoided. Sinappsi, the journal of the National Institute for Public Policy Analysis (INAPP), reports data on the presence of foreigners in Italy by age group: compared to an average of 8.8% of the total population, foreigners between the ages of 25 and 39 account for over 15%; in northern Italy, they account for almost 20%. A significant portion of the potential workforce in the most productive age group consists of workers without Italian citizenship.
The failed referendums, particularly on reducing the time required for citizenship, show that the integration of foreign workers requires a long struggle, without the harmful illusion of parliamentary shortcuts. In this struggle, the Workers’ Clubs will always be at the forefront.