Consequences of Incorporation of Trade Unions into Institutional Politics in Varieties of Capitalism. Trade Unions’ Mobilizing Capacity in Italy, France and China

Following neoliberalism ideologies, European national governments have progressively weakened labor-capital conflict by delegitimizing trade unions and workers’ collective actions, even more in the aftermath of the last economic and financial crisis. In most Western countries, trade unions have lost their crucial role as mobilizing structures, partly, as a consequence of trade union incorporation into institutional politics. This tendency has concerned various countries, with different political regimes and with different industrial relations systems. Weakened labor-capital conflict has occurred in countries such as Italy where collective bargaining, the regulation of industrial relations, and a consultation model have lasted longer than in other countries. Similar tendencies have occurred in authoritarian contexts too. Since the 1980s, in China, a country progressively opened to market economy with a political system characterized by a one-party rule and single trade union, antagonist forms of workers’ claims have been controlled either through indiscriminate and repressive violence or through the regulation of illegal trade unions. In contrast, despite low levels of trade unionization, high levels of labor disputes have occurred in France in the last years, thanks to broader coalitions, connecting trade unions with youth and students, and a focus on wider claims such as social exclusion. In this framework, this paper aims to examine patterns of trade union density, and labour disputes, namely strikes, in Italy, France and China, in oppositions to the process of trade unions’ incorporation into institutional politics. Indeed, the latter represents one useful way adopted by democratic and non-democratic governments for controlling capital-labour conflict. By joining insights from mainstream social movement theories with insights from industrial relations perspectives, we aim to explain the role of the state as an economic and political actor in shaping patters of trade unions density and labor disputes. Furthermore, we discuss the role of the intermediate structures of mobilization, including trade unions and other groups. We argue that patterns of labour disputes are not necessarily associated to trade unions density. Indeed, intensive labour-capital conflict has occurred in those cases where trade unions have constructed broader alliances, and/or where trade unions have been replaced by more informal, even illegal, groups. Particularly, in France labor-capital conflict was sustained by a strong interrelated web of alliances among different trade unions as well as between trade unions and other sectors of the population such as students. In China, the mobilizing role was mostly played by irregular and often illegal trade unions and NGOs. Neither of these processes occurred in Italy where labor-capital conflicts has steadily decreased despite high trade union density. Empirically, we draw on OECD, ILO and the Chinese Official Labour Force data as well as on data on the legal reforms of the labour market occurred in Italy, France and China, to show changing patterns of trade union density, and strike activities during the last thirty years.