Labor repertoires, neoliberal regimes and US hegemony: what ‘deviant’ Italy tells us of OECD unions’ paths to power

Abstract

This paper notes the tendency of 'social movement unionism' scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic to focus on and prescribe the citizen repertoire as the single most important repertoire of labor for challenging neoliberal globalization. Consistent with liberal conceptions of civil society and theories of participatory democracy, it implicitly dismisses political unionism as a path to labor's revitalization. It also assumes epochal change and confines neoliberalism to the post-Washington Consensus era. Deviant case analysis of Italian labor's use of two repertoires (the citizen and the labor repertoire) and of its two regimes of capitalism (in succession, a post-WWII neoliberal regime and a post-1970 corporatist regime) over the course of the 'American Century' gives pause to both these contentions. This study relates labor's citizen repertoire to the era of US hegemony that promotes changes in party-government that tend to reproduce the image of the archetypically neoliberal American polity: a polity that is devoid of 'labor' as a recognized category of the political community, is low in social rights, and, relatedly, is devoid of a party of labor. In this neoliberal political order, labor is perennially locked into the category of 'citizen' and reliant on the citizen repertoire. By contrast, the survival of parties of labor in non-US polities during the post-war wave of neoliberalism permitted union movements a route away from labor-decategorizing orders -political unionism. Now, in the postWashington Consensus wave of neoliberal regime change, that route is more onerous owing to Third Way changes in parties of labor. The major challenge for labor movements that have experienced regime change to a neoliberal polity is in directing their efforts and even their new citizen repertoire to the task of recapturing parties of labor or to creating new ones -or risk long-term US-style labor decategorization. . 2 The episode of contention described in this section, focusing on the 'Trainstopping' action, was compiled by the author by means of ethnographic research conducted in 2005 in Florence, Genova, Livorno, Ravenna, Rome, and Salerno. Semi-structured and unstructured interviews of between 1 and 3 hours were conducted with disobbedienti activists and union officials, and all information provided by each interviewee was cross-referenced with others and with available newspaper and online coverage.

Interpreting strike activity in western Europe in the past 20 years: the labour repertoire under pressure

“…Rather, contract bargaining periods influence but do not determine the ‘strike rhythm’; they explain occasional peaks in industrial conflict. Cross-national variation in days-not-worked rates highlights differences in the dimension of bargaining units, ‘union-restricting workplace institutions’ (Gentile, 2015: 259) and the strictness of peace obligation clauses contained in collective agreements. Where industrial conflict – exceptionally – occurs, it tends to be large and long-lasting.…”

“…Indeed, the claim has recently been advanced that the US labour movement is going ‘back to the future’ (Milkman, 2013) regarding its repertoire, being reminiscent of social movement unionism and associated with the citizens’ rights realm (Johnston, 2000). In reality, a dichotomous approach to the repertoire is too simple as workers could combine both repertoires by layering one repertoire on a pre-existing one (Gentile, 2015).…”

Trade union strategies to enhance strike effectiveness in Italy and Spain

“…Compared to Spain, unions in Italy have found it easier to involve and lead other social movements and civil society organizations in their demands against austerity policies. This had already became clear during the second Berlusconi government (2001–2005), when Italian unions successfully managed to combine traditional labour and other mechanisms in alliance with citizens against the attempt to abolish dismissal protection legislation (Gentile, 2015). The 2012 mass demonstration in the Circo Massimo bringing together almost three million people showed the capacity of Italian unions to build a successful oppositional movement around labour market-related issues.…”

“…To start with, the relationship between unions and social movements in Italy has historically not been as polarized as it has been in Spain, partly because the low degree of union institutionalization has made them organizationally closer to social movements (Regalia, 2013; Giorgi and Caruso, 2015). This has allowed trade unions to use general strikes jointly to contest government policies, being able to rely upon both political and citizen repertoires with relative ease (Gentile, 2015). At the same time, this has made the framing process of strikes more effective, particularly when needing to reach a majority of the population.…”

Crisis, cambio en la UE y estrategias sindicales: el impacto de la condicionalidad en el repertorio estratégico de los sindicatos españoles durante la crisis de la eurozona

“…De esta manera, un contexto neoliberal está relacionado con una EOP pluralista en la que los sindicatos funcionan como grupos de interés. En este caso, sus demandas no están orientadas a las acción política o laboral en el ámbito de la empresa (como ocurre en sistemas corporativistas) sino a las demandas de derechos civiles, más parecidas a los repertorios de acción utilizados por los movimientos sociales (Gentile, 2015).…”