The factory and the welfare state: redundancy, benefits and workers’ organization at Alfa Romeo Arese, 1963-1986

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article tracks the relationship between the Italian welfare state and the social relations of production at a Fordist factory, showing how social policy influenced the pattern of workers’ contention on the industrial shop floor. Welfare state analysis has concentrated on the institutional aspect of social policy but neglected the role that state benefits played in industrial organization and workplace relations. The article ‘nests’ the analysis of social policy in a micro-history of the factory, using the case study of Arese – a plant owned by the carmaker Alfa Romeo – Milan, Italy. Tracking the history of Arese, the article shows how the Italian system of short-time work subsidies, the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni (CIG), served to quell industrial unrest and target unions’ organizational resources. From the late 1960s, the CIG was used by managers to suspend workers during strikes and acted as a deterrent against their mobilization. As redundancies increased during the 1980s, workers were put on short-time for prolonged periods and prevented from entering the factory. This degraded their professional identity and eroded their political ties with the workplace, curtailing the basis of unions’ organizational strength within the factory.