Ida Regalia

Employers, unions and the state: The resurgence of concertation in Italy?

In the 1990s a series of events has signalled the resurgence of concertation between governments and the social partners. Two tripartite agreements on incomes policies and the collective bargaining system, and ‘negotiated’ laws designed to reform pensions and the civil service, have provided the basis for the economic recovery which took place despite the turbulent phase of political transition. Concertation appears to be broader and more stable than it was in the early 1980s, and it also seems to run counter to the prevailing trend in other European countries. It is argued that this outcome is mainly due to changes that have taken place in the nature and strategies of the actors involved.

Labour Conflicts and Industrial Relations in Italy

There exists a wide-ranging literature on the peculiarities and distortions of post-war Italian economic development, and the reader is referred to this for a detailed account of the process. In the present context it will suffice to describe those aspects of the Italian economic system which help explain the course of industrial conflict and the nature of trade union policy. We shall, therefore, limit ourselves to only a few points. Some basic statistical data will be found in Appendix I.

Regulating external and internal forms of flexibility at local level: five European regions compared

Legislators at European and national levels have encouraged the wider use of contingent forms of employment and adaptable forms of work organization. Less attention has been paid to their regulation by employers and trade unions (and works councils) at local, enterprise level. A comparative analysis is presented of the regulation of these new forms of employment and work through processes of negotiation and consultation at workplace level in regions of five EU countries. Drawing on the findings of parallel surveys conducted in the five regions, the different new forms being utilized and their regulation between management and employees are outlined. Negotiation and consultation is most evident over practices associated with adaptable forms of work organization. Yet even where employee representatives are present, a significant ‘participation gap’ is identified in all five regions, which is most evident over the utilization of contingent forms of employment, and over the terms and conditions of such workers.

How the Social Partners View Direct Participation: A Comparative Study of 15 European Countries

In international discussion of new developments in industrial relations at the workplace there is general agreement on the importance of direct employee participation in the organization of work. This article reports some of the results of a wide-ranging study conducted as part of a project initiated by the European Foundation in Dublin. It analyses the position of the organized industrial relations actors in the 15 countries of the European Union. Its focus is on how they understand the concept of direct participation and how they assess the impact of new participative programmes on company performance, work organization and working conditions, and the established system of workplace industrial relations.

Trade Unions and Employment Relations in Italy during the Economic Crisis

Abstract Many of the usual assumptions about the impact of the economic crisis on trade unions and employment relations only partially fit the Italian case. Trade unions during the crisis showed resilience both organisationally and as important actors in economic and political life. Also, the national industry level reaffirmed itself as the key level in industrial relations. Explanations of these unexpected outcomes have to do with some features of all three actors of Italian employment relations. Trade unions have become over time a relevant actor not just in the industrial relations arena but in several other spheres of Italian society and politics. As to employers, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have tended to prefer national sectoral-level agreements and set rather low wage standards, while employers’ associations have shown an organisational interest in preserving centralised bargaining where they play a role. Finally, governments have been too weak and short-lived to follow a consistent strategy of unilateral decision-making.

Changing joint regulation and labour market policy in Italy during the crisis: On the edge of a paradigm shift?

In the case of Italy, many of the more common assumptions about the impact of the crisis on employment relations do not fit. We briefly outline the main traditional features of joint regulation and labour market policy in Italy and then illustrate how the crisis erupted in a situation already marked by major defects. We go on to discuss the social partners’ positions and practices showing how the crisis influenced social dialogue and collective bargaining in a complex way. They largely maintained their previous organizational strength and continued to play a central role in the regulation of labour; yet, a significant, unexpected change was the more autonomous role assumed by the state. In the medium term, this may eventually result in a deep transformation of the whole labour relations system.

For a reconfiguration of trade union action: a wide-ranging interpretation beyond hypotheses of convergence

After a period of a substantial lack of interest, for some time now there has been a resurgence of books and articles conducting general reflection on the trade union’s role and future prospects in the advanced Western economies. This is partly an effect of the economic and financial crisis, which raises new questions in regard to the evident shortcomings of previous models of regulation. However, the new book by Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Richard Hyman differs from the others with its particularly broad and systematic approach, at the same time providing an ample repertoire on which to draw and raising a number of key issues. The book is undoubtedly the fruit of Hyman’s long experience and study of the theme of the trade union action and role in the European countries from a historical and theoretical perspective, and more recently that of Gumbrell-McCormick, who also draws on personal professional involvement – particularly in the little-explored area of tradeunion action at international level. In regard to Hyman’s huge output, mention must be made of his two, in many respects pioneering, books on industrial relations in Europe, co-edited with Anthony Ferner in the 1990s, or his more theoretical-interpretative book of 2001; and in regard to Gumbrell-McCormick her valuable studies on the Global Unions and the International Trade Union Confederation. But the book is also the fruit of an uncommon methodological sensitivity and of investigation into the potentials and limits of comparative analyses in the social sciences. All this explains the broad scope of the book, which is based on a considerable number of national cases – 10 – but without being an anthology of case studies accompanied by an introduction and/or conclusion of comparative-interpretative type, as is usual with qualitative analyses. Neither does the book restrict the focus of its analysis to crosscomparisons on a few measurable variables (union density, collective bargaining coverage, strikes) as is typical of the comparative quantitative analyses increasingly common in the mainstream social sciences. Hyman has frequently warned against the risks and the drawbacks of one or the other method in his writings on how industrial relations can be studied in comparative terms. The reader therefore has the pleasant surprise of not only being able to range among numerous cases – which are related to four main varieties of capitalism, and on which the first part of the book provides brief historical-institutional descriptions so that they can be

Managerial strategies and trade unions in the company environment

Over the last ten to fifteen years the prospects for a trade union role and collective action in western European countries have been approached largely via a paradigm of crisis of representation and decline. This article argues that uncertainty is equally characteristic of managerial strategies and that, paradoxically enough, the exercise of the trade union function of representation of labour may prove to be particularly crucial in the management of the most innovative organisations, insofar as it can help build the social consensus which such organisations increasingly require. From this perspective, industrial relations at the workplace in the eighties and early nineties are re-interpreted as attempts to secure employee commitment through new uses of the traditional methods of collective bargaining. The more recent developments are then approached by discussing the quite unexpected role played by trade unions and works councils in the two fields - often seen as typical of managerial prerogatives - of the development of key human resources and of programmes for direct employee participation in organisational change. Finally, a new conceptual framework for analysis of the problems facing the labour movement is outlined.