Guglielmo Epifani

The Honourable Guglielmo Epifani MP
Secretary of the Democratic Party
In office 11 May 2013 – 15 December 2013
Preceded by	Pier Luigi Bersani
Succeeded by	Matteo Renzi
General Secretary of the CGIL
In office 12 September 2002 – 3 November 2010
Preceded by	Sergio Cofferati
Succeeded by	Susanna Camusso
Personal details
Born	(1950-03-24) 24 March 1950 Rome, Italy
Political party	Democratic Party
Other political affiliations	Socialist Party (before 1994) Democrats of the Left (1998–2007)
Alma mater	Sapienza University of Rome
Profession	Trade unionist

Guglielmo Epifani (born 24 March 1950) is an Italian trade unionist and politician. From 2002 to 2010 he was the General Secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), the biggest trade union in Europe. On 11 May 2013 Epifani was appointed Secretary of the Democratic Party (PD).^[1]

Biography

Guglielmo Epifani was born in Rome in 1950. In 1953 the family moved to Milan and then returned to Rome, in the Talenti neighbourhood, where Epifani finished secondary school at a Liceo classico, obtaining a classical education diploma in 1969. In 1973 he graduated from the Sapienza University of Rome in Philosophy with a thesis on Anna Kuliscioff and subsequently enrolled in the CGIL, where he worked as a trade unionist. In 1974 he directed the publishing house of the Confederation, the Esi, significantly increasing its personal prestige within the confederation: within two years landed to the Office of Auditors, where he coordinates the contractual policies of the categories, and then all Industry Bureau of the Confederacy.

Epifani was a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), in 1979 he began his career as a union leader with the post of Secretary-General of the category of Printing and paper manufacturers. In 1990 he joined the confederate and in 1993 Deputy Secretary-General shall be appointed by Bruno Trentin. He was writing before the Italian Socialist Party and, after the end of the PSI, the Democrats of the Left.

Following the termination of the mandate of Sergio Cofferati, Deputy of the union from 1994 to 2002, Epifani becomes General Secretary of CGIL, the most important Italian trade union, the first Socialist to lead since its reconstitution in 1944. On 16 October 2010 Guglielmo Epifani delivers his last speech as secretary of the CGIL in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome, on the occasion of the event FIOM. On 3 November 2010, going on to the leadership of the CGIL Susanna Camusso, the first woman secretary of the CGIL.

After the Italian election in 2013 Epifani was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a candidate of the Democratic Party in the constituency list Campania I. On 11 May 2013, Epifani became Secretary of the party, with the mission of leading the party to the convention. He is the first former Socialist to lead the PD.^[2]

References