L'azione del sindacato a livello territoriale

Trade unions and welfare: initiatives at the local level in Italy. In Italy one may detect quite a long, although largely unknown, history of diffused relationships between trade unions and local-level governments and institutions, which over time resulted in practices of union involvement in and contribution to the design and implementation of labour and social policies at the periphery of the IR system. The article discusses the phases and logics of this concealed history, focusing on their main features and outcomes. Two main phases and two main logics of action are pointed out. While in a first period – during the 1970s and 1980s – the initiative of the unions in the field of labour and social policies at the territorial level was essentially contingent and reactive in character, aimed at seizing opportunities and/or coping with emergencies, subsequently – during the last two decades – such initiative turned to be more intentional and strategic in orientation, entering into the redefinition of the unions’ representative strategy targeted to specific groups of workers and citizens. As to the logics of action, a first variant labelled ‘informally concerted flexicurity’ is described, typical of the situations in which localized forms of labour market protection are devised. A second variant, labelled ‘negotiation over social citizenship’, is finally illustrated, which is based on original practices of negotiation with local-level governments over programmes and resources allocation in the field of social policies.