Skip to main content

BETWEEN INNOVATIVE SERVICES AND NEW FORMS OF ASSOCIATION: THE ITALIAN POLICY LAB OF THE BREAK BACK PROJECT

Italian PolicyLab

The Italian Policy Lab of the European BreakBack Project took place on 26th May. During the events academics, Trade Union experts, and representatives of the project case studies, discuss the first research findings.

The research focus is the intertwining between innovative services (servicing) and the quality of membership and participation (organising), in particular in the groups of workers that are difficult to organise: self-employed, high-level professionals, unemployed looking for occupation and platform workers.

Paolo Feltrin and Franca Alacevich, accademics with great experience in the study of trade unions and industrial relations, commented the research findings, presented by Francesco Lauria (Cisl), Andrea Bellini (University of Florence), Alberto Gherardini (University of Turin).

In particular, they highlighted how the growing role of individual services, also as a doorway to the trade union, is affecting some dynamics of bargaining and representation, where "hybrid" situations between subordinate and independent work are increasingly encountered, even in apparently traditional sectors. Therefore, if the bargaining, while maintaining a collective dimension, is more "personalised", the trade union services become even more relevant, also from a social point of view, and, as it is clear in the BreakBack project, we can use the term "collectivising services" to define them. 

Emmanuele Massagli (President of Adapt), Mattia Pirulli (Secretary General Felsa Cisl) and Giuseppe Gallo (President of the Tarantelli Foundation) debated on the relationship between territorial and company experiments and the strategic dimension national confederal.

The representatives of Italian case studies in the project (Vivace Cisl, Partita Viva Vicenza, Sportello Lavoro Cisl Firenze Prato, Quadrifor, Nidil Firenze), some real good practices between servicing and organizing, took the floor.

The CISL Confederal Secretary Giulio Romani, closed the Policy Lab, declaring: "servicing and organizing are key tools for Trade Union to pursuit the social aim of bringing people together and promoting justice. The Break Back project is a lode of concrete experiences and ideas for the future that will certainly be useful for the CISL, in preparing its congress”.