Differenze ed individualizzazione : quale ruolo per le relazioni industriali?

The chapter analyses the role of industrial relations in workplaces as differences (of gender, age, nationality to name the most evident ones) are seemingly becoming more and more important. In this perspective, the traditional objective of collective bargaining to define a set of homogeneous rules may have to be adjusted with a view to cope with these transformations and find new and more suitable forms of joint regulation which respond to these demands and, at the same time, allow to preserve and strengthen the representation of 'labour'. The article confronts the specificities of industrial relations and Human Resource Management policies, which might be an alternative to the collective joint regulation of labour - like in the case of diversity management - and discusses the implications of the flexicurity model for the regulation of flexibility and trade union action.