Abstract
The management revue is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary European journal publishing both qualitative and quantitative work as well as purely theoretical papers that advance the study of management, organisation and industrial relations.
Highlights
Comparative analyses of unionization and industrial relations systems sometimes liken the Italian case to a more or less well-defined southern European (Ebbinghaus, 2003) or Mediterranean model, which combines an ideologically-based division among the peak organizations, organizational fragmentation and weakness, low levels of membership, limited recognition by the counterparties, an adversarial logic of action, and a low ability to influence regulation of the economy
To what extent is this characterization appropriate?. That since their reconstruction in 1944, the Italian trade unions have been divided along ideological lines; that unlike trade unions in the Nordic countries, they have not reached high levels of membership; that differently from trade unions in many corporatist systems (Ebbinghaus & Visser, 1999; Schmitt & Mitukiewicz, 2012), they have not received formal recognition from governments and employers; that they have generally resorted to conflict much more frequently than unions in the other developed countries (Franzosi, 1995; Bordogna, 2010); and that they have been often viewed as organizationally weak, in that they for long relied on political backing and lacked the organizational infrastructure necessary for decentralized collective bargaining (Lange et al, 1982; Baccaro & Pulignano, 2010)
From many points of view, after the period of centralization and social pacts of the 1990s, and the more turbulent recent period of renewed conflict with the government and employers and of divisions among trade unions, the confederations seem to be stronger and better organized than they were towards the end of the 1980s
Summary
Italian Trade Unions: Still Shifting between Consolidated Organizations and Social Movements?**. This article discusses the current characteristics of trade unionism in Italy. Attention is paid to the initial imprinting of the model, which stemmed from the circumstances in which the trade unions were reconstituted at the end of WWII, and whose far-reaching consequences are still apparent today. Because of original divisions along ideological lines, and within a context of enduring voluntarism and low institutionalisation, the Italian trade unions, which acquired large followings and strong organizational capacity and influence over time, still tend to oscillate between behaving as either organizations or social movements according to convenience and to pressures applied by the rank and file. ** Article received: November 12, 2012 Revised version accepted after double blind review: January 9, 2013.
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