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DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT

NICOLA VITO LASORSA

“Nicolino”

3 March 1939 – 28 January 2022

Turin

Fiat Mirafiori assembly worker, union steward and Puglian son who made Turin home

The sign in the window read 'Non si affitta ai meridionali', and Nicola Lasorsa, twenty-one, with a cardboard suitcase tied with string, read it twice and knocked anyway. The landlady, to her own surprise, let him in, and he repaired her radiators for free for the next four years.

He was born in 1939 in Gravina in Puglia, one of nine children of a farm labourer, and left school at thirteen. In 1960, like tens of thousands of southerners, he took the night train north to Turin, where Fiat was hiring faster than the city could house people. In February 1961 he joined the assembly line at Mirafiori, working on the bodies of the Fiat 600 and later the 128, thirty-three years in all.

He joined the FIOM union in his first week and became a shop steward in 1969, the year of the Hot Autumn. In the autumn of 1980 he stood at the Mirafiori gates through the thirty-five days of the great strike, an experience that taught him that dignity and defeat can share the same bench. The union, he used to say, was how a man from Gravina learned that he had the right to a pension, a toilet break and a Sunday. Colleagues remember his notebook of every worker's name, birthday and children.

He married Carmela in 1965 and they raised Vito and Antonella in a flat in Mirafiori Sud, with a balcony full of basil and a kitchen where, every Sunday, orecchiette were made by hand and the door stayed open for any Pugliese who felt lonely in Turin. He supported Juventus with the weary loyalty of a man who had once queued five hours for a ticket, and taught his grandchildren to cheer, and to lose, with dignity.

After retiring in 1994 he volunteered at the parish soup kitchen and taught newly arrived Moroccan and Romanian workers how to read their payslips. Nicola died on 28 January 2022 at the Molinette hospital in Turin, with Carmela and the children beside him. He leaves Carmela, Vito, Antonella and four grandchildren, one of whom has just started at the Politecnico di Torino, the first in the family.

“A man from Gravina has the right to a pension, a Sunday and a seat at the table.”

Funeral arrangements

Service
Funeral Mass
Date & time
East Africa Time (Nairobi)
Venue
Parrocchia Sacra Famiglia di Nazareth
Address
Via Gaidano, Turin
Resting place
Cimitero Parco, Turin
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Survived by

  • Spouse: Carmela Lasorsa
  • Son: Vito Lasorsa
  • Daughter: Antonella Lasorsa Ricci
  • Grandchildren: 4 grandchildren
  • Brother: Pasquale Lasorsa

Life journey

  1. 1960Moved north to Turin · Turin

    Took the night train from Puglia with a cardboard suitcase.

  2. 1961–1980Assembly line worker · Fiat Mirafiori · Turin

    Built bodies for the Fiat 600 and later the 128.

  3. 1965Married Carmela Santoro · Gravina in Puglia

    A marriage of fifty-six years.

  4. 1969–1994FIOM shop steward · FIOM-CGIL, Fiat Mirafiori · Turin

    Stood at the gates through the thirty-five days of 1980.

  5. 1980–1994Senior line worker · Fiat Mirafiori · Turin

    Trained younger workers until his retirement.

  6. 1994–2021Volunteer, soup kitchen and payslip clinic · Parrocchia Sacra Famiglia di Nazareth · Turin

    Helped new arrivals read their payslips and find their feet.

  7. 1994Medal for Thirty-Three Years of Service · Fiat · Turin

    Presented at his retirement from Mirafiori.

Condolence messages (6)

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Vincenzo Marino

Cousin in Stuttgart

We both left Puglia in 1960, he for Turin and I for Stuttgart. For sixty years we compared factories by phone every Sunday. He always said Fiat made better cars; I always said Mercedes paid better. We were both lying, and we both knew it.

Fatima El Amrani

Parish payslip clinic

I arrived in Turin at twenty with no Italian and a payslip I could not read. A stranger in a parish room read it with me, line by line, and then asked whether I had eaten. That stranger was Nicola. I have since trained forty others to do what he did.

Pasquale Lasorsa

Brother in Gravina in Puglia

My brother left Gravina with a suitcase and came back every August in a Fiat 128 packed with presents and stories about the cold of Turin. He never lost his accent, even when he lost his hair. Gravina has lost one of its best.

Giulia Ricci

Granddaughter, student at the Politecnico di Torino

Nonno's notebook is on my desk. It lists three hundred names from his line, their children and the dates of their weddings. I started at the Politecnico this autumn, the first in the family. He understood what that meant long before I did.

Don Marco Ferrero

Parish priest, Sacra Famiglia di Nazareth

He came to the soup kitchen every Tuesday for twenty-seven years. He never preached, never sat down and never left before the last dish was dry. Once I asked what he believed in. He pointed at the line of people waiting and said, 'That, Father. The queue.'

Gianni Bertolotti

Fellow steward, Mirafiori

Nicola taught us that a union is not a shout but a list of names. He carried every colleague's children in that notebook and asked after them every shift. In the autumn of 1980, when we lost, it was Nicola's notebook that told us who needed help first.