It is not just the PCI which supports the measures. Bettino Craxi, the new leader of the Socialist Party (PSI), has also given his public approval. But the attitude of the trade union leaders, under pressure from the rank and file, BETTINO CRAXI - Socialist leader. has been more guarded. Giorgio Benvenuto of the UIL (PSI union) said it was a very different proposal from our own'. Hardly unbridled militancy, but significantly different from the position of his party chief.
But the most important endorsement came from Luciano Lama, the general secretary of the PCI union, the CGIL, which is as big as the two other major unions put together. Lama was able to dictate his party's position to the other two, the UIL and the CISL. he was suostannany m with the President of the Council of
• concrete guarantee. We demand therefore that the trade unions become representatives of the demands of the rank and file'.
Already the PCI and the union bureacracies were posed with an acute dilemma. The FLM, the metal workers union and traditionally the most militant section of the working class, came out with a call for a general strike this week. Antonio Lettieri, the FLM national secretary and a member of the centrist Party of Proletarian Unity (DUP), described the measures as 'the politics of theft'. KED WEEKLY 21 Ocsober 1976 7