Per una difesa delle relazioni industriali

Abstract

- While recognizing the weakness of Italian industrial relations with respect to the British context, in academic and associative terms as well as in terms of empirical research, the Authors stress the frequent attacks to which industrial relations, both as a field of study and as social and economic practice, are exposed also in Italy in recent years. At the same time, the Authors emphasize the persisting, greater value of the critical and multidisciplinary approach typical of industrial relations for the analysis and regulation of the employment relations in contemporary societies, with respect to more unilateral and prescriptive approaches of other analytical perspectives such as those of some economists and of HRM, also in the light of the recent economic crisis. The Authors conclude, in agreement with their British colleagues, by stressing the fundamental contribution of industrial relations not only to the study and the practical regulation of the employment relations, but also to the building of the industrial citizenship, and through this way to the defence of the quality of democratic life.