Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (it: General Confederation of Labor, the CGL Rosso, CGdL) was an Italian labor union, founded in 1906, under the initiative of communist

Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

 and socialist

Italian Socialist Party

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

 militants. Having survived the Fascist dictatorship and the Second World War as an underground organization, the CGL joined the cross-party CGIL labor federation in 1945.

Founding

The Confederazione Generale del Lavoro was founded 1 October 1906 but its formation goes back to the first Camera del Lavoro

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....

 (Workers' Hall) begun in Milan in 1891, and to the founding of its largest constituent unions (especially the FIOM national metal workers' union created in 1901). The CGdL's first secretary was the Reformist Socialist Rinaldo Rigola (1906–1918). He was followed in 1918 by fellow reformist Ludovico D'Aragona (1918–1925).

Underground and Liberation

During the fascist dictatorship the CGdL survived clandestinely under the leadership of Bruno Buozzi. At the beginning of 1927, in the face of violent repression of the left, the reformist leadership of the CGdL chose to disband the organization, feeling that any recognition of the fascist regime prevented independent trade union activity. Their decision was opposed by Communists and left socialists like Buozzi, who spent the next decades maintaining the old trade union Confederation clandestinely. The undergrounf CGdL faced a perilous course, not only because of the fascist repression, but because of the dramatic changes in direction of the Communist International (IC). In 1929 Italian communist militants were ordered to enter fascist trade unions, only to be told in 1935, when the IC adopted the Popular Front

Popular front

A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...

 strategy, to reconcile with the Socialists and other anti-fascists in trade union cells and confront the Fascist state.

Postwar

After its forced suspension, unions were reconstituted under the Pact of Rome (3 June 1944), confederating the socialist, communist and Christian Democrat unions in the CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labor). The influence of the PCI and Palmiro Togliatti

Palmiro Togliatti

Palmiro Togliatti was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.-Early life:...

, was strong in the federation, and in 1948 the PSI and Christian Democrat unions left to form the UIL

UIL

UIL may mean:* UIL Holdings Corporation* Unione Italiana del Lavoro, the Italian Labour Union* United International Airlines, ICAO designator of a cargo airline based in Serbia...

 and CISL

CISL

CISL may mean:* Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, the Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions* Continental Indoor Soccer League. An Indoor Soccer League 1993-1997* CISL , a radio station in Richmond, British Columbia....

.