Trade union strategy in fashion retail in Italy and the USA: Converging divergence between institutions and mobilization?

Abstract

We investigate trade union strategies in fashion retail, a sector with endemic low wages, precarity and a representation gap. Unions in Milan organized ‘zero-hours contract’ workers, while their counterparts in New York established an alternative channel of representation, the Retail Action Project. We argue, first, that the dynamics of both cases are counterintuitive, displaying institution-building in the USA and grassroots mobilization in Italy; second, union identity stands out as a key revitalizing factor, since only those unions with a broad working-class orientation could provide an effective representation for fashion retail workers.

Partnering against Insecurity? A Comparison of Markets, Institutions and Worker Risk in Canadian and Swedish Retail

“…Third, and finally, the findings have implications for research on lowwage work. The inevitable nature of bad jobs in low-skilled service work has been challenged through comparative research (Carré and Tilly 2017;Doellgast 2012;Gasparri et al 2018). This study examined the role of unions in challenging these outcomes in the context of partnerships.…”

Workplace processes and employment opportunities for vulnerable social groups

“…In both locations, unions were affected by the long process of erosion of industrial institutions (Baccaro and Howell, 2011), deepened by the 2008 economic crisis. In Italy, the militant metal union FIOM-CGIL opposed employer demands for deviations from the sectoral collective agreement, whereas the other unions adopted more conciliatory positions (Benassi et al, 2019; Gasparri et al, 2018), as to some extent did the confederal CGIL. As a result, the employer signed separate collective agreements with the other unions; the unions have only recently started to bargain together again.…”

“…For instance, employers cannot hire only men for heavy jobs on the assumption that they are stronger than women. However, legal principles are not automatically mobilized; there is leeway which can be exploited by employers (Doellgast, 2010), so institutional provisions can require union action to ensure implementation (Gasparri et al, 2018; Geary et al, 2017).…”

Framing work and welfare: Insights from the growing relevance of company welfare in Italy

“…As known, the identity of Italian unionism resides in between class and society, at some distance from the ‘market pole’ (Hyman, 2001). Looking at the two largest union confederations, CGIL’s identity tends towards class (and the logic of industrial democracy) and CISL’s tends towards society (and the logic of partnership and associational membership) (Gasparri et al., 2019).…”

“…The third phase focuses on trade unions – here only the two largest ones, CGIL and CISL – and how they reacted to the growing relevance of company welfare. At first, when company welfare provisions boomed in the aftermath of 2015 and 2016 fiscal reforms and trade unions were excluded from the relevant policymaking, their reactions matched their different ideological standpoints (Gasparri et al., 2019; Hyman, 2001). CISL, whose identity tends towards ‘society’, welcomed the prospects of company welfare provisions, seen as expression of industrial relations inspired by collaborative pluralism, although – in practice and in particular at the early stage – CISL played a relatively marginal role in the diffusion of such provisions, something that makes CISL’s position compatible with consultative unitarism (Bray et al., 2020).…”