Growing whilst declining: The case of the Italian CGIL

Abstract

The crisis of the CGIL (Confederazione Generate Italiana del Lavoro), through which the Italian Communist Party has historically worked, is part of a more general crisis of trade unions not only in Italy, but in Europe as a whole. The ability of European trade unions to respond to new challenges has varied. This is partly a matter of the relative strength of unionization, but a number of specific negative factors have played a role. The ‘crisis’ in Italian trade unions is deeper than that in the more solid organizations (Sweden and Austria, for example), but less deep than in other Mediterranean countries. The main factor at work in Italy is the lack of a transition from a ‘proletarian’ model of trade union action, involving a crisis of trade union mediation, the narrowing of the horizons for reform, failings in the realm of representation and democracy, and a trend from ‘voice’ to ‘exit’. The proletarian model failed for two major reasons. First, the universalism implied in the model was in fact limited,...