A life for the CGIL and in the CGIL before coming to politics. Cultured and refined, with a degree in philosophy, Guglielmo Epifani took his first steps in the largest Italian trade union confederation at a very young age to arrive, after a long career, to lead it from 2002 to 2010, the first socialist general secretary. Gentle trade unionist, as he has been defined, Epifani firmly held the helm in difficult years such as those of the economic-financial crisis after 2008, years in which with lucid analysis he pointed to the risk of an industrial decline in the country, when he did not let go in the defense of workers’ rights, and relaunched the role of the trade union starting with the defense of the territory.
Born in 1950, Epifani was born in Rome to parents of Campania origin. In 1953 the family moved to Milan and then returned to the capital, in the Talenti district, where Epifani finished his high school studies at the Orazio high school, obtaining the classical high school diploma in 1969. In 1973 he graduated in philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome with a thesis on Anna Kuliscioff. A love for study and research that, over the years, has never left him and to which he also aspired to return.
After graduation he enrolled in the CGIL. In 1974 he directed the publishing house of the Confederation, the ESI, considerably increasing his prestige within the confederation: within two years he first arrived at the Trade Union Office, where he coordinated the contractual policies of the categories, and then at the Federal Industry Office. Socialist, in 1979 he began his career as a union leader with the post of assistant general secretary of the category of polygraphic and paper workers.
In 1990 he entered the confederal secretariat of the CGIL and in 1993 he was appointed assistant general secretary by Bruno Trentin. He was first enrolled in the Italian Socialist Party and, after the end of the PSI, in the party of the Left Democrats. Deputy of Sergio Cofferati from 1994 to 2002, following the conclusion of Cofferati’s mandate, he became general secretary of the CGIL, the first socialist to lead it since its reconstitution in 1944.
On October 16, 2010 Guglielmo Epifani delivered his last speech as CGIL secretary in Piazza San Giovanni, in Rome, on the occasion of the Fiom event. On 3 November 2010, Susanna Camusso, the first female secretary of the CGIL, succeeds him.
The farewell to the union does not mark the exit from public life.
Quite the contrary. The doors of politics are open to Epifani. In the 2013 political elections he was nominated for the Chamber of Deputies, in the Campania 1 constituency, as leader of the Democratic Party, being elected deputy of the XVII Legislature. On 7 May 2013 he was elected president of the X Permanent Commission for Productive Activities, Commerce and Tourism of the Chamber of Deputies.
On 11 May 2013 he was appointed, following the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani, Regent Secretary of the Democratic Party, receiving 458 votes from the party assembly, equal to 85.8% of the valid votes, out of 534. The following 15 December he is replaced by Matteo Renzi, elected Secretary in the primaries of the previous December 8th.
On 25 February 2017 he took part in the split of the left wing of the Democratic Party, joining Article 1 – Democratic and Progressive Movement. In the political elections of 4 March 2018 he was a candidate on the Free and Equal list and was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the Sicily 2 district, becoming part of the XVIII legislature.