Second-level collective bargaining, productivity, and employee welfare: Italy and the South

Abstract

The study explores “Contracting 2◦ level, productivity and corporate welfare: Italy and the Mezzogiorno”, reconstructing the problem and the main evidence developed in the text. Starting in 1993, with the Trilateral Agreement of Trade Unions, Confindustria and Government Ciampi of 23 July, a new path of income and employment policy, contractual arrangements and labour policies was outlined. The model oriented to the result obtained (more widely applied) is based mainly on the past of business history, while the model oriented to the promotion of the result (still poorly applied) introduces endogenous mechanisms capable of anticipating changes in productive assets deriving from economic turbulence and new technological paradigms. However, it is significant that some contractual proximity applications have allowed to solve difficult business crisis situations or renew business development paths: for example, the Golden Lady Group, IFOA, ENAIP Veneto, InfoCert S. This statement, which may seem paradoxical, finds an explanation in the models that consider the employment contract as a partial exchange of gifts: “labor contracts are partial gift exchanges” (Akerlof, 1982, p. 567) between worker and enterprise.

Keywords

welfare welfare; Productivity; Half-day; Italy; Industrial policy; labour market

JEL codes

I38; D24; R11