On Tuesday 30 April (5pm) the presentation of the book “Io sono un lavororio. I am a worker. Memory of a shipwright who became a trade unionist” by Dino Grassi for ETS editions. Giorgio Pagano, curator of the work and author of an afterword and an interview with Dino Grassi, will speak at the meeting. The initiative is organized by the Tellaro mutual aid society in collaboration with the Mediterranean cultural association.
Dino Grassi (1926-2023) was a worker at the Muggiano shipyard in La Spezia, secretary of the Internal Commission for over ten years. He was then regional councilor of the PCI, municipal councilor of Sarzana and provincial councilor. Born in Massa, he immediately moved with his family to Pozzuolo di Lerici and spent his adolescence and youth in San Terenzo. Dino Grassi was also an important figure for the community of Tellaro, an example and a point of reference for its inhabitants who worked on the construction site.
The “memory” traces Grassi’s working life at the Muggiano shipyard from 1940 to 1980. Through his memories, both his personal experiences and those of the community around him emerge, influenced by the significant historical events of the time. These include moments such as 25 July and 8 September 1943, the strikes of 1944 and the Resistance, post-war reconstruction, trade union fragmentation in the 1950s, the fall of the Stalin myth, the workers’ struggle of the 1960s , culminating in the Hot Autumn and its repression.
In La Spezia, in the early 1960s and early 1970s, there was a tough fight for the survival of the Muggiano shipyard. At a time when the stories of the industrial proletariat risk being forgotten, Grassi’s “memoir”, together with the interview, encourages us to examine the narratives of the factories and to recover the rich political and cultural legacy of that period, so that it does not go lost a source of knowledge still precious to us today.
