May 1st in Portella della Ginestra

On May 1st, Labor Day, Portella will have as its theme "Work, rights, social status: our Europe". This will also be the theme chosen to celebrate Labor Day in Portella della Ginestra, in continuity with the slogans that make up the appeal that CGIL, CISL and UIL will launch in Bologna, the city that will host the national event this year. trade unions.A call for a new Europe, strengthened and united, founded on work and capable of giving young people job prospects.

After the deposition of the wreaths in the cemetery, at 9.30 am the concentration at the People's House in Piana degli Albanesi, from where the procession will start up to the memorial of Portella della Ginestra. Following, the meeting, which will be opened by the reading of the names of the victims. The general secretary CGIL Palermo Enzo Campo, Senator Emanuele Macaluso, who returns to make a speech at the site of the massacre after 71 years, and the deputy secretary general CGIL Gianna Fracassi will speak.

And we talked about Portella yesterday during the presentation of the book "Portella della Ginestra, State massacre?", By Emanuele Macaluso, in the saloon of the CGIL Palermo.

“The massacre of the trade unionists killed from 1943 to 1946, from Portella della Ginestra onwards, counts more than 70 dead. There were not only 11 victims of Portella but it was a continuous massacre, comparable perhaps in Italy only to the Bologna massacre, with its 85 dead - said the general secretary CGIL Palermo Enzo Campo - The fight was virulent, against of a trade union movement that was scary because it could help change people's working conditions. The CGIL, together with the PCI and the PSI, in the cities, in the countryside, in the mines, broke the equilibrium of submission and subordination towards the feudal, patronal world. The clash took place with bare hands. The trade unionists who lead the processions were not isolated men, next to them there were women, an entire people, who rebelled against the social block, consisting of the DC, the liberals, the monarchists, allied with the judiciary of the time and from the Church of the time, that of Cardinal Ruffini, who claimed that the Mafia was an invention of the Communists. Every time the movement was organized - added Campo - the massacres arrived, they responded with weapons. Honor to Falcone and Borsellino and honor to Pio La Torre, without whom there would have been no law of the State to oppose the mafia organization. But without our 70 dead there would not have been that strong movement that fought for the rights, freedom and dignity of all ”.

“It was a great thrill to come to Palermo, which didn't let me sleep. I am happy to return to Portella to take part in this May Day - declares Emanuele Macaluso, who will speak again at the meeting after 71 years - The role of the union was essential. The Portella massacre was an attempt to intimidate the movement of peasants gathered there which had also caused a political change in Sicily. The events took place in 1947. On April 20 of that year there were the first regional elections, which marked a significant success for the united left and the massacre took place on May Day. In that 1947 - continues Macaluso - there was trade union unity. Today young people must know that organizing a movement is not easy. In that climate, organizing the peasants, miners and workers was a difficult task to which many brave workers and young intellectuals who gave up other careers dedicated themselves. Today everything has changed. Only one thing has not changed: the need for the workers, the people, to have the word. And only an organized movement can do this, whether it be a union, a party, an association. We must continue to have a voice to make sense of the sacrifice of so many dead comrades. To give an idea of this country. To resume the fight ”.

For Gianna Fracassi, deputy secretary general of the CGIL, “today we still wonder whether the Portella one was a state massacre or not. In reality we know that it was a state massacre but even today, in the face of unequivocal judicial acts, this debate continues to raise questions and for too many of these state massacres we still ask for truth and justice. In the identifications of the state massacres there is never a revelation of the faces, and those who are not identified remain unpunished. It is a debate that does not open in Italy out of addiction or indifference. And both are serious. Indifference is even worse: it means denying these dead to be a piece of the common history of our country, denying a piece of collective identity ”.

Press release by CGIL PALERMO

PORTELLA1947 thanks Doctor CALOGERO GUZZETTA for his availability