FUTURA UMANITÀ. THE WORKERS’ MOVEMENT

How many people have taken to the streets with the trade union over more than a century of history?
 

Rome’s Camera del lavoro (Chamber of Labour) turns 135, and Cgil marks 120 years since the founding of the General Confederation of Labour in 1906. It is a long and powerful collective story of struggles for the dignity of labour, rights, social justice, freedom and democracy.
 

Futura umanità traces the history of the trade union and of the workers’ movement in Rome. The exhibition unfolds through a collection of documents spanning from 1868 to the 1980s. It begins with the origins and the May Day tradition, then moves through the founding of the General Confederation of Labour, the working classes under Fascism and the united Cgil of the post-war period. It continues with the 1950s and the protests against the Tambroni government, up to the “Hot Autumn” and beyond. Newspapers, pamphlets, statutes and contracts from the Archivio storico Cgil di Roma e del Lazio “Manuela Mezzelani” and from private collections give voice to those who lived and organised that history.
 

Alongside the documents, historical posters of strikes, demonstrations and union campaigns are shown together with period photographs. Archival films from the Fondazione Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico (AAMOD) bring back the faces, marches and assemblies that shaped the history of Italy.
 

During the exhibition, Pavilion 9a will host talks, debates and presentations.
 

A deeply contemporary story, because the better future we need today is rooted in a distant past.