State-Controlled Dualisation Between Public and Private Employment: Implications for Labour and Employment Relations

Abstract

The chapter deals with the outsourcing of public services in two Italian public administrations—a municipality and a local health authority (LHA)—the consequences for working conditions, employment relations institutions and the trade union responses. For each case, the analysis sheds light on three analytical dimensions: the main drivers of outsourcing; the consequences for terms and conditions of employment and collective bargaining; and the strategies that trade unions implemented in the workplace. In Italy, outsourcing processes are linked to diminished resources at disposal of public authorities, together with stricter spending constraints and severe austerity measures in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis. Outsourcing led to the dualisation of working conditions and to the institutionalisation of a two-tier workforce in the workplace: the public personnel enjoyed more protected terms and conditions of employment, higher union density and higher collective bargaining coverage than the private sector employment, characterised by inferior working conditions, job instability and lower protections. Such a dual trajectory resulted from a different and poorly coordinated labour regulation within the two sectors and from a myopic concessionary and expelling strategy of the trade unions, focused exclusively on the protection of public employment.