We Want Everything: A Novel

In 1969, the workers from the south of Italy on the assembly lines of the north of the country revolted in waves of wildcat strikes and violence. And yet it was not really a workers’ movement along the available spectrum, then, of worker organisations and, most notably, the Communist Party. May Day, for instance, a celebration of work, seemed imbecilic to these newly migrated workers in revolt. They regarded the Communist Party as an impediment to real change and little more, an organ of compromise with company bosses. These workers were ready to reject the entire structure of northern life and of work itself. Their revolt was an all-out assault on their own exploitation. They wanted everything, as their placard slogan and shop floor chant famously expressed, Vogliamo Tutto!