Labour Conflicts and Industrial Relations in Italy

Regalia, Ida; Regini, Marino; Reyneri, Emilio

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-03022-4_4

Cited by 26 publications

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“…After 1968 the centre of industrial conflict moved inside the factories; however, the various forms of external action did not disappear, but were added to the internal ones, assuming different functions in the course of 1968-75 (Regalia et al ., 1978: 117).…”

Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Translated into Tillyan terms, the repertoire used by Italian labor between the 1950s and the Autunno Caldo , featuring performances such as ‘tents and sit-ins in public squares’ and ‘urban demonstrations’ (Regalia et al ., 1978: 117), was a citizen repertoire. Following the explosion of wildcat strikes in the late 1960s and union leaders’ decision to ride them, a worker repertoire was reclaimed and expanded by new performances, such as ‘the sciopero a singhiozzo ’, ‘the sciopero bianco ’, and ‘the sciopero a scacchiera ’ 4 (cf.…”

Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rights to strike, to organize, and to workplace representation, though enshrined in the post-war Republic’s Constitution, were effectively nullified by the Christian Democrat’s landslide 1948 electoral victory. In addition, subsequent Christian Democratic-led governments refused to translate the new Constitution’s provisions for union recognition into operable law, depriving workers of a collective vehicle through which to organize and thus to exercise their constitutional right to strike (Regalia et al ., 1978).…”

Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Labor repertoires, neoliberal regimes and US hegemony: what ‘deviant’ Italy tells us of OECD unions’ paths to power

Gentile

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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This paper notes the tendency of 'social movement unionism' scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic to focus on and prescribe the citizen repertoire as the single most important repertoire of labor for challenging neoliberal globalization. Consistent with liberal conceptions of civil society and theories of participatory democracy, it implicitly dismisses political unionism as a path to labor's revitalization. It also assumes epochal change and confines neoliberalism to the post-Washington Consensus era. Deviant case analysis of Italian labor's use of two repertoires (the citizen and the labor repertoire) and of its two regimes of capitalism (in succession, a post-WWII neoliberal regime and a post-1970 corporatist regime) over the course of the 'American Century' gives pause to both these contentions. This study relates labor's citizen repertoire to the era of US hegemony that promotes changes in party-government that tend to reproduce the image of the archetypically neoliberal American polity: a polity that is devoid of 'labor' as a recognized category of the political community, is low in social rights, and, relatedly, is devoid of a party of labor. In this neoliberal political order, labor is perennially locked into the category of 'citizen' and reliant on the citizen repertoire. By contrast, the survival of parties of labor in non-US polities during the post-war wave of neoliberalism permitted union movements a route away from labor-decategorizing orders -political unionism. Now, in the postWashington Consensus wave of neoliberal regime change, that route is more onerous owing to Third Way changes in parties of labor. The major challenge for labor movements that have experienced regime change to a neoliberal polity is in directing their efforts and even their new citizen repertoire to the task of recapturing parties of labor or to creating new ones -or risk long-term US-style labor decategorization. . 2 The episode of contention described in this section, focusing on the 'Trainstopping' action, was compiled by the author by means of ethnographic research conducted in 2005 in Florence, Genova, Livorno, Ravenna, Rome, and Salerno. Semi-structured and unstructured interviews of between 1 and 3 hours were conducted with disobbedienti activists and union officials, and all information provided by each interviewee was cross-referenced with others and with available newspaper and online coverage.

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Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Italian Labor’s Two Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Labor repertoires, neoliberal regimes and US hegemony: what ‘deviant’ Italy tells us of OECD unions’ paths to power

Gentile

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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“…However, the strength of the labour movement is not totally unrelated to the level of job security regulations, as the Italian case illustrates. The Worker's Charter of 1970, which led to the considerable strengthening of dismissal restrictions, was the direct result of the workers' increased power resources and the subsequent protests of 1968–1969 (Regalia et al. 1978: 152).…”

Section: Sufficient Conditions For the Outcome ‘High Level Of Job Secmentioning

confidence: 99%

Job security regulations in Western democracies: A fuzzy set analysis

Emmenegger

2011

European Journal of Political Research

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This article uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the determinants of job security regulations – here understood as restrictions on hiring and firing – in Western democracies. Unlike previous studies, the analysis reveals three different paths to high levels of job security regulations. The first path covers the Southern European state capitalist countries. In these countries, conflicts between forces pushing for liberal democracy and groups alienated from modernisation have led to high levels of statism and crowded out other societal actors. Job security regulations were enacted relatively early in order to provide social security by means available to the state. Due to fragmented welfare states, job security regulations have remained one of the most important pillars of the social protection regime. The second path covers the Continental European managed capitalist countries and is also characterised by high levels of statism. In these countries, repressive governments employed a stick‐and‐carrot strategy to weaken the labour movement and tie the loyalties of the individual to the state. After the Second World War, these countries developed corporatist intermediation systems and encompassing and generous welfare states. Finally, the third path covers the Nordic managed capitalist countries. This path is characterised by a high degree of non‐market coordination, strong labour movements and few institutional veto points. In the Nordic managed capitalist countries, job security regulations traditionally have been subject to collective agreements. However, in the 1960s, labour movements succeeded in pushing through the public legislation of job security despite opposition from employers' associations. Methodologically, this article demonstrates that cross‐national differences in the level of job security regulations can only be explained if the methods used allow for complex causality. In contrast, methods which focus on ‘net effects’ do not offer satisfactory explanations for the cross‐national differences in the level of job security regulations.

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“…In fact, the FIOM (Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici), the metalworking branch of the CGIL confederation was originally opposed to such a change and preferred to maintain wage increases in line with the parametric scale, whereas FIM (Federazione Italiana Metalmeccanici), a branch of the CISL, favoured it. The FIOM's goal was rather that all workers attain higher pay and rewarding work through training and skill development (Regalia et al, 1978). It sought an egalitarian shift at the shop floor through the development of 'potentially equal jobs-equal in the sense of being more or less engaging, flexible and knowledge intensive' (Baccaro and Locke, 1996, p. 22).…”

Section: Egalitarian Institutions In Italymentioning

confidence: 99%

Powerful remnants? The politics of egalitarian bargaining institutions in Italy and Sweden

Oliver

2010

Socio-Economic Review

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Why are some countries better able to sustain egalitarian outcomes attained in past decades in the current inhospitable conditions? Moreover, why have egalitarian practices proven fragile in some countries with traditionally strong social democratic governments and powerful unions and yet have been sustained in countries with disjointed unions and right-wing parties in power? Italy and Sweden, the central cases examined in this paper, reflect these diverging trends. In view of understanding why certain countries better sustain egalitarian institutions and outcomes, the paper investigates how two inter-related institutional traits set countries apart in terms of how egalitarian institutions were constructed and dismantled and how these traits influenced the type of institutional remnants and bargaining dynamics maintained in the aftermath. The two traits in question are: (a) the type of confederal groupings and; (b) the range of wage scale coverage.

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Labour Conflicts and Industrial Relations in Italy

Cited by 26 publications

References 0 publications

Labor repertoires, neoliberal regimes and US hegemony: what ‘deviant’ Italy tells us of OECD unions’ paths to power

Labor repertoires, neoliberal regimes and US hegemony: what ‘deviant’ Italy tells us of OECD unions’ paths to power

Job security regulations in Western democracies: A fuzzy set analysis

Powerful remnants? The politics of egalitarian bargaining institutions in Italy and Sweden

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