Rete degli Studenti Medi is an Italian high-school students' union, created 4 October 2008 from three other student associations active in Italy during the first years of the 21st century.:Rete degli Studenti (ReDS), national association linked to the main Italian Trade union (CGIL), was founded in 2007 after a division in the oldest Italian Students'Union (UdS) caused by the end of the cooperation between UdS and the CGIL; Idee Studentesche in Movimento (ISIM), network of local associations that had tried to get over the split between ReDS and UdS; Studenti di Sinistra (SDS), students' association that supported the DS Party before the birth of the Italian Democratic Party.

The Italian General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union centre in Italy. It was formed by an agreement between socialists, communists, and Christian democrats in the "Pact of Rome" of June 1944. In 1950, socialists and Christian democrats split forming UIL and CISL, and since then the CGIL has been influenced by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and until recent years by its political heirs: the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), the Democrats of the Left (DS) and currently the Democratic Party (PD).