Italy: Institutionalisation and resilience in a changing economic and political environment

The chapter presents development in the Italian system of industrial relations since the year 2000. It shows how considerable transformations in the institutional framework have led to limited changes in the structure and outcome of industrial relations processes, so far. While social concertation has progressively lost importance in the definition of employment and economic policies, trade unions and employers have mantained significant bilateral relations, including at cross-industry level, where important steps to increase the institutionalisation of the overall system have been taken. While multi-employer bargaining showed contintuity and resilience, the possibility that larger enterprises can opt for special regulatory regimes was testified by the Fiat Group, which decided to leave the metalworking multi-employer regulatory system and establish an independent group-level collective agreement.