Inclusive Unions in a Dualized Labour Market? The Challenge of Organizing Labour Market Policy and Social Protection for Labour Market Outsiders

Abstract

AbstractDynamics of labour market dualization have affected most Western European countries over the last two decades, and trade unions have often been seen as conservative actors protecting the interests of their core constituencies and as such contributing to labour market dualization. However, empirical evidence from Italy shows that unions' stance towards atypical workers has been more inclusive than the literature expected, despite the conditions for pro‐insider policies being firmly in place. By analyzing unions' strategies towards temporary agency workers in Italy, the article aims to reconcile the empirical observations that conflict with the theoretical expectations. It is argued that unions have indeed put in place inclusive, yet selective, policies towards atypical workers, and that unions' identity is a central explanatory variable to understand unions' selective inclusiveness.