Industrial relations in Italy

Union organizations, collective bargaining structure, collective bargaining at cross-industry level, bargaining at sectoral level, bargaining in companies, employees representatives bodies  all you need to know about the industrial relations system in Italy is in this fiche.

A few figures

Union membership amounts to 35 percent but 50 percent of these are pensions, as unions are the ones that manage supplementary pension funds.  Collective agreements cover about 80 percent of workers, and collective bargaining bout 30 percent of companies.

Union organisations

The three major confederations and the principle of united action.

The three major trade union confederations are:

–        Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL, Italian General Confederation of Labor)

–        Confederazione Italiana dei Sindacati Lavoratori (CISL, Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions)

–        Unione Italiana del Lavoro (UIL, Italian Labor Union)

Italian social relations revolve around these three confederations, which were related to political parties for a long time: the CGIL was related to the Communist party, the CISL to the Christian Democrats, and the UIL to the Republicans and then the Socialist Party.  These “identifications” gradually became obsolete even though the CGIL is still close to the left,…