Building Solidarity Abroad

JOURNAL: ISSUE 2 - 2013

Jobs, training, immigration, pensions, and health care; sound familiar? These issues, which are upper most in the minds of construction union leaders and members in Italy, are strikingly similar to the top concerns of their North American counterparts. These policies and programs were central to the agenda of the 15th National Congress of FILCA-CISL, Italy's Federation of Construction and Allied Workers, one of the nation's two construction union divisions that represent all building trades workers. 

In view of the organizations' past meetings and training exchanges, in response to the Federation's invitation BAC President James Boland appointed Executive Vice President Gerard Scarano to represent the Union at the Congress in mid-May. In his address to FILCA-CISL delegates, Scarano (above) told delegates that the bonds that connect construction workers across the world are stronger than whatever differences may set them apart. "International solidarity is our only antidote to the poisonous 'race to the bottom' that stalks and exploits the world's cheapest and most repressed labor. In our respective countries, solidarity must be ever-present in the coalitions we build and work through to affect the policies that matter most to our members." Scarano says tentative plans call for BAC to host a FILCA-CISL delegation sometime in 2014.