| Full name | Confederazione del Comitati di Base |
|---|---|
| Country | Italy |
| Office location | Rome, Italy |
| Website | www.cobas.it |
The Confederazione del Comitati di Base (Cobas) is a rank and file[1] trade union center in Italy. It was formed in the late 1980s from members who were dissatisfied with the leadership of the three main Italian confederations. Many of its members see it as syndicalist, but it has also courted the Trotskyist group, the League for the Fifth International who it shared a platform with at the anti-G8 protests in Rostock in 2007.
Cobas regard themselves as alternative labor unions, that is rank and file unions in contrast to the hierarchical mainstream unions that impose upon the base accommodationist anti-workers comprimeses.[2][3][1] Comparable "rank and file" labor unions exist in France: the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU), and the Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD) and their confederation in the Group of 10.[3]
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The factory councils became more and more popular during the 1970s, and its co-existence with the traditional mainstream workers unions encouraged an increase in unionization. However, in 1978, the major mainstream workers unions were compelled to a push towards recentralizing power before practices and rules by the base could stabilize outside of their control.[4]
[...] unofficial rank and file committees, Comitati di Base, known as Cobas, who have been at the forefront organising militant strike action in many industrial sectors since 1987. The COBAS have led strikes of railway workers, teachers, airport workers and bank workers as well as being heavily involved in organising general strikes and demonstrations against the government's austerity measures. For example, in 1992, they alone, and against the Italian Communist Party, organised a 300,000 strong demonstration in Rome against rising unemployment and have called for half-day general strikes to be extended.