Epifani was born in Rome in 1950. In 1953 the family moved to Milan and then returned to Rome, in the Talenti neighbourhood, where Epifani finished secondary school at a Liceo classico, obtaining a classical education diploma in 1969. In 1973 he graduated from the Sapienza University of Rome in Philosophy with a thesis on Anna Kuliscioff and subsequently enrolled in the CGIL, where he worked as a trade unionist. In 1974 he directed the publishing house of the Confederation, the Esi, significantly increasing its personal prestige within the confederation: within two years he landed at the Office of Auditors, where he coordinated the contractual policies of the categories, and then all Industry Bureau of the Confederacy.
Epifani was a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). In 1979 he began his career as a union leader with the post of Secretary-General of the category of Printing and paper manufacturers. In 1990 he joined the confederate and in 1993 was appointed Deputy Secretary-General by Bruno Trentin. He was writing before the Italian Socialist Party and, after the end of the PSI, the Democrats of the Left.
Following the termination of the mandate of Sergio Cofferati, Deputy of the union from 1994 to 2002, Epifani became General Secretary of CGIL, the most important Italian trade union, the first Socialist to lead it since its reconstitution in 1944.
On 16 October 2010 Guglielmo Epifani delivered his last speech as secretary of the CGIL in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome, on the occasion of the event FIOM. On 3 November 2010, the leadership of the CGIL was handed over to Susanna Camusso first woman secretary of the CGIL.
Subsequent to the 2013 Italian general election, Epifani was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a candidate of the Democratic Party in the constituency list Campania I. On 11 May 2013, Epifani became Secretary of the party, with the mission of leading the party to the convention. He was the first former Socialist to have led the PD.[2]
