Analysis of Italian Medium-Sized Enterprises' Collective Bargaining from an International Perspective: Evidence from the

1. ANALYSIS OF ITALIAN MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES’ COLLECTIVE BARGAINING FROM AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: EVIDENDE FROM THE MANUFACTURING SECTOREconomic and Industrial Democracy, 2014, DOI: 10.1177/0143831X14552201 ANDREA SIGNORETTI ilerA, 09/09/2016, MILANO

2. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: A EUROPEAN OVERVIEW • Growing importance of company’s collective bargaining but in different forms (Traxler, 1995, Colvin and Darbishire, 2013) • With reference to EU-15 and medium-sized firms (Voskeritsian and Kornelakis, 2011, Fulton, 2013): • Organized and well-developed. Germany with open exit clauses (but threatened by employers’ associations decline); Sweden-Denmark with binding but lean national contracts • Disorganized (after 2011) and low-developed. Greece and Spain • Still organized but subject to attempts of disorganization: Italy

3. WHY ANALYSING COMPANY’S COLLECTIVE BARGAINING • The type and development of company’s collective bargaining is important both for firms’ competitiveness and employee working conditions. Development in regard to: mutual recognition (pre-condition), working time, employee participation, continuous training, contingent pay (Roche and Geary, 2000, Treu, 2011, Leoni, 2012) • Lack of studies within medium-sized enterprises, particularly in Italy, while it would be relevant to verify such developments of the country within an international perspective, since decentralization was first institutionalized in 1993 • Participative industrial relations are important but difficult to build in countries, like Italy, where there are no institutional incentives or constraints about (Streeck, 1997)

4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY • Research questions: • Degree of historical development (as to specific subjects) and type (derogations from national contracts and laws) of company’s collective bargaining in medium-sized firms • Development and institutionalization of participative systems of industrial relations • Research method: analysis of company’s collective agreements since 1993 plus interviews with shop stewards, employers and union representatives • Analysis of 7 medium-sized manufacturing firms (purposive sampling, Bryman, 2008) located in Verona, Northern Italy

5. RESULTS • Good mutual recognition and no conflict; • Good development of working time agreements, while employee participation and continuous training are rarely bargained and implemented; • Contingent pay is always present but it represents a fake in 4 cases out of 7 just to receive fiscal relief • Participative industrial relations realized in one case due to peculiar firm’s features

6. RESULTS • Overall, few subjects negotiated with small increase over time. • No derogation on the grounds of art.8 and on the grounds of interconfederal agreements either • Collaboration on working time favoured by local culture • Italian medium-sized enterprises turn out to have an organized but low-developed system of local collective bargaining

7. CONCLUSIONS • Possible interventions to favour the development of organized forms of company’s collective bargaining: • Minor regulations of wide-sector national contracts relying on local collective bargaining. But social parties are contrary • Institutionalization of initial forms of participative industrial relations • Too ambitious ideas in a period of economic crisis? Then how can labour productivity be improved? • But Jobs Act (2015): company’s collective bargaining has the same value of national contracts, and employers seem to favour deregulation now.

8. Thanks for your kind attention