A referendum to restore the

sliding wage scale The sliding wage scale consists in increasing the wages as the prices rise in order to maintain the purchasing power of the workers even if there is inflation. Application In France The sliding wage scale was introduced in France in July 1952 under ...

was held in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

on 9 June 1985.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1048 It was defeated by margin of 54.3% to 45.7%.

Background

A sliding wage scale, which allowed for the automatic adjustment of the salaries of Italian workers at the same rate inflation, had been extended to most industries between 1975 and 1977. This mechanism was blamed for the persistent high inflation environment of the early 1980s, which reached a 20% annual rate and was considered an example of a

wage-price spiral In macroeconomics, a wage-price spiral (also called a wage/price spiral or price/wage spiral) is a proposed explanation for inflation, in which wage increases cause price increases which in turn cause wage increases, in a positive feedback loop. Gr ...

. In February 1984

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Bettino Craxi Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi ( , , ; 24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician, leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from 1976 to 1993, and the 45th prime minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. He was the first PSI membe ...

issued the first of a number of decrees that aimed to strongly reduce the indexation. A referendum to repeal these measures was promoted by the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) 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 (PSI). ...

. Those voting "yes" wanted to restore the full indexation system, while those voting "no" wanted to retain the recent changes.

Political party positions

In addition to the Communist Party, which was the main promoter, the repeal of the Craxi laws and restoration of the sliding wage scale was supported by the far-left

Proletarian Democracy Proletarian Democracy ( it, Democrazia Proletaria, DP) was a far-left political party in Italy. History 1970s DP was founded in 1975 as a joint electoral front of the Proletarian Unity Party (Italy), Proletarian Unity Party (PdUP), Workers Vangua ...

and

Federation of the Greens The Federation of the Greens ( it, Federazione dei Verdi, FdV), frequently referred to as Greens (''Verdi''), was a green political party in Italy. It was formed in 1990 by the merger of the Federation of Green Lists and the Rainbow Greens. T ...

, the

Sardinian Action Party The Sardinian Action Party ( sc, Partidu Sardu, it, Partito Sardo d'Azione, PSd'Az or PSdA) is a Sardinian nationalist, regionalist and separatist political party in Sardinia. While being traditionally part of the Sardinian centre-left, the p ...

, and the neo-fascist

Italian Social Movement The Italian Social Movement ( it, Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national ...

. The main opponents of the repeal were the five government parties, the so-called ''

Pentapartito The Pentapartito (from Greek , "five", and Italian , "party"), commonly shortened to CAF (from the initials of Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani), refers to the coalition government of five Italian political parties that formed between June 1981 an ...

''. Among labour unions the repeal was supported by a majority of the Communist-dominated

CGIL The Italian General Confederation of Labour (; CGIL) is a national trade union based in Italy. It was formed by agreement between socialists, communists, and Christian democrats in the "Pact of Rome" of June 1944. In 1950, socialists and Christi ...

, and opposed by the Catholic CISL and secular UIL.

Results

The referendum was considered a major victory for Craxi and a mark of declining influence for the Communist Party. The sliding wage scale would eventually be abolished in all forms in 1992.

References

{{Italian elections Referendums in Italy

Wage referendum Italian wage referendum