THE RIDE-IN VOTE

Caro Pippo,

I'm writing to let you know how I am, but also to tell you what is happening to our country. I'm going to vote Communist, convinced that it's in the best interests of poor workers like you and me. Your Communist vote is needed too. Many are convinced, as I am, that it is time to change ... You must come home to see everyone and spend a few happy days, but above all to make the Christian Democrats pay for the many sufferings they have caused us.

Tuo,

Giuseppe

Whether Pippo works in a Luxembourg steel mill, digs coal in Belgian mines or mans a Volkswagen assembly line in West Germany, he may well receive identical letters from Vittorio, Gino, Maria-Teresa and all his other party friends back home. Last week local Communist Party offices were passing out "Dear Pippo" form letters to home-town comrades to send to their migrant-worker friends in other European countries--a switch on the 1948 campaign, when Italian Americans wrote to relatives in the old country urging them not to vote Communist.

For the 530,000 eligible voters among the 2.5 million Italians working in other EEC countries, casting a ballot in the June 20-21 election is no simple matter. Since Italy makes no provision for absentee balloting, the worker must travel home, forfeit up to seven days of pay or vacation, spend about $80 on rail fare, and endure at least two days' riding each way on jampacked trains that provide standing room only. Yet more than 300,000 Italian workers traveled home for the country's 1972 general elections, and the ride-in vote is expected to be even larger this year.

Between June 17 and 20, 65 special trains for returning workers within Italy to connect with international trains will be added on routes carrying migrant labor from Brussels, Stuttgart, Munich and other major centers. In addition, 192 special trains will be provided for Italian residents living elsewhere. Although voters must pay the cost of transport to the Italian border, government subsidies will allow them to travel free inside Italy and even get free tickets for ferries from the mainland to Sardinia, Sicily and other islands.

While all the Italian parties are interested in luring the migrant vote, the Communists, who received an estimated half of it in 1972, have launched the most effective campaign. Besides the Dear Pippo appeal, nearly every Italian working in the EEC has received a message from Berlinguer and a letter from the party office in his home town. Urged the Communist boss: "The vote you cast can contribute to saving Italy."

In the recreational rooms provided by the Communists for Italian workers in northern Europe, special campaign tape cassettes are played over the public address systems and party officials from Rome are addressing workers' groups in Stuttgart, Ulm, Luxembourg and Liege. Working through local trade unions, the P.C.I, has also tried to get foreign employers to give their Italian employees time off to vote.

The Christian Democrats lack the Communists' experience at getting the vote on the road, and their counterefforts seem haphazard and piecemeal at best. They dallied a month before devising a program and last week, while the Communists were organizing bus caravans, the Christian Democrats had still not decided whether to help subsidize costs of transport to Italy. Without strong influence in the trade unions outside Italy, their primary means of reaching the workers is through the less embracing network of regional associations for emigrants, such as the Friends of Friuli or Workers from Sicily.

The Christian Democrats are, however, receiving some aid from private industry and foreign sympathizers. Fiat has reportedly chartered a plane to bring back some 250 employees from Brazil for the election. The Americans for a Democratic Italy Committee, headed by Lawyer Paul Rao Jr., has so far arranged for more than 560 people to campaign against the Communists. "This is a crusade of the heart, intellect and spirit," says Rao. Perhaps so, but as of last week, it appeared that the Communists were mustering by far the larger army.

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