Camera del Lavoro

Camera del Lavoro were centers for Italian Syndicalist labor unions, modeled on the French Bourse du Travail, which flourished from 1895 to the rise of Fascism in the 1920s.

In its initial conception, Camere del Lavoro brought together all unions in a given locality, gave them a shared democratic political structure, and provided services to unions, workers, and communities. Most were initially funded by reformist, socialist and radical municipal councils.

Ideologically, many of the founders of Camere were syndicalists, anarchists, socialists, and those involved the cooperative movement. The first founders saw Camere as less a union hall, and more the seeds of a future horizontalist societal structure. But by the time of the First World War, unions were consolidating into politically divergent federations, and most Camere were wedded to one or another.

With the rise of the socialist (later communist) led Confederazione Generale del Lavoro, and the cross party union concentration following the Second World War, Camere del Lavoro became simply the headquarters of union locals.

There are several thousand operating today; one in most every Italian town. Most are tied to the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro union, though most leftist labor groups maintain their own.

References

* [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formazioni_di_difesa_proletaria_a_Genova Translation from It:Wikipedia subsection of Formazioni di difesa proletaria a Genova]
* [http://www.pelloutier.net/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=35 Anthony Lorry. Le syndicalisme révolutionnaire en Italie - Un aperçu historique jusqu'en 1914] (downloaded 29-06-2007)

External links

* [http://www.cgil.milano.it/ http://www.cgil.milano.it/] : The website of the Milan Camera del Lavoro, and the Milan branch of the CGIL.
* [http://www.cgilra.it/centenario/storia/ 1900-2000. Centenario della Camera del Lavoro di Ravenna] : History of the CGIL Camera del Lavoro in Ravenna.
* [http://www.comune.empoli.fi.it/biblioteca/iniziative/mostre/bacheca/03/03.htm Documents relating to the Camera di Empoli, founded 1901] : Public archive of the city of Empoli.
* [http://www.delfo.forli-cesena.it/Cofo/cdstoria/cdstoria/CDfatti/archiviostato/sommarchivio.htm Documents on the Camera del Lavoro in Flori, including its political split of 1912.]
* [http://www.usiait.it/img/fino1919/storia.htm Archive of documents and photos on the Camerae del Lavoro of the Anarcho-Syndicalist USI, 1910s-1920s]

See also

*Unione Sindacale Italiana
*Confederazione Generale del Lavoro
*Anarchism in Italy
*Autonomism
*Fasci Siciliani