Trade Unions and Employment Relations in Italy during the Economic Crisis

Ida Regalia and Marino Regini

South European Society and Politics, 2018, vol. 23, issue 1, 63-79

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.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13608746.2018.1430608 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:fsesxx:v:23:y:2018:i:1:p:63-79

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/fses20

DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2018.1430608

Access Statistics for this article

South European Society and Politics is currently edited by Susannah Verney

More articles in South European Society and Politics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().