Garavini was born in
Turin. At a very young age, he entered the
Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the trade union
Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), which he contributed to reform after the defeat in the
FIAT internal elections of 1955. He was subsequently regional secretary of CGIL, secretary of FIOM (CGIL's metallurgic workers confederation) and, finally, national secretary of CGIL. In the trade union conflict between
Fausto Bertinotti (who always favoured strikes) and
Sergio Cofferati (more incline to mediation), Garavini usually sided for the first policy, but also proposed intermediate solutions such as the intermittent strike or the permanent consultation. As a member of PCI, he supported
Rossana Rossanda when she formed the party-newspaper
il manifesto and was later expelled from the party, but Garavini never abandoned it. He was a staunch supporter of the automatic recovery of salaries against inflation, which was introduced thanks to CGIL in 1975. He was elected in the
Italian Chamber of Deputies in June 1987, being confirmed in the elections of five years later. When PCI secretary
Achille Occhetto proposed to renounce to the party's communist nature and to form the
Democratic Party of the Left, Garavini founded, on 15 December 1991, the
Communist Refoundation Party, of which he was national secretary until 1993, when he resigned, being replaced by Fausto Bertinotti. In 1995 Garavini, then a deputy for the Communist Refoundation, voted confidence to the center cabinet led by
Lamberto Dini, in contrast with his party's guidelines. Subsequently, he left to form, together with the party's right wing such as
Lucio Magri and
Famiano Crucianelli, the
Movement of Unitarian Communists, which in 1998 merged with the
Democrats of the Left. Garavini wrote numerous essays on Italian politics and trade unions, such as ''Ripensare l'illusione. Una prospettiva dalla fine del secolo'' of 1993. He died in Rome in September 2001. ==Electoral history==