Suchergebnisse

PurposeThe paper examines the different trajectories of externalisation and the development of different kinds of welfare mix in three different sub-sectors of socio-educational services: long-term care for the elderly, early childhood services and kindergartens. By integrating the industrial relations and comparative public administration literatures, it analyses the different rationales underpinning contracting-out decisions of Italian local governments.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a multi-method, multi-level approach: quantitative data on the provision of socio-educational services and the nature of the providers are combined with the analysis of 12 case studies of municipalities through 80 semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis.FindingsThe paper argues that differentials in labour regulation across the public/private divide and the consequent possibility to access labour markets characterised by cheaper labour and higher organisational flexibility are a key explanation in local governments' decisions to outsource. Despite labour market factors playing a prominent role, their relevance is significantly tempered by political and social factors and particularly by the strong opposition of citizens, personnel and trade unions to pure market solutions in the provision of such services. However, the centrality of these factors depends on the nature of the services: political sensibility against privatisation proved to be stronger in kindergartens, while services for the elderly were more frequently and less contentiously privatised.Originality/valueThe main contribution is the integration of the two research traditions to analyse patterns of outsourcing in the socio-educational services in Italy, showing that neither of them is able, alone, to explain the different private/public mix characterising different social and educational services.

The transition to an on-demand service economy, supported by unprecedented technological developments and the digital revolution, has modified traditional self-employed professions and generated new ones, fostering the growth of a body of highly qualified and hyper-specialised self-employed professionals in the European economies. An analysis of this phenomenon highlights three critical questions, connected to their position in the labour market: 1) the contested definition of their legal status and the (ad hoc) regulation adopted; 2) their position within each national social protection system; 3) the complexity of collective representation in a context of major labour market fragmentation. The article explores these issues from a socio-economic perspective, comparing three European countries − Italy, Germany and the UK − with different welfare state regimes and diverse models for regulating professions. First findings show partly divergent responses to such common challenges, yet display some positive signs of change for self-employed professionals.

In its territories of origin, organized crime entrenched itself in the local institutional context by either colluding with or (often violently) silencing unions. Criminal organizations are today 'discreetly' expanding into new territories, and these tactics no longer fit with the strategy of the so-called 'silent mafia' when dealing with trade unions. This article explores the tactics that an Italian criminal organization ('Ndrangheta) adopted in a new territory in its relations with unions in the labor market and workplace, as part of a broader strategy that 'Ndrangheta pursued in relating with a wide set of local actors. The longitudinal case study, based on judicial documents and interviews with local informants, shows that the 'Ndrangheta abandoned traditional tactics. It instead engaged in union avoidance by imitating tactics adopted by legal employers (the 'old recipe') made more effective through the violent potential of its criminal nature (a 'new spice').

Abstract
After some promise in the 1990s, European unions have grown increasingly disillusioned with regard to the results of EU social policy and EU social dialogue. The paper analyses the extent and reasons of this disillusion by looking at the impact on social dialogue of the Active Inclusion Recommendation launched by the European Commission at the outset of the economic crisis in 2008. The Recommendation led to a tripartite framework agreement at the EU level in 2010 (the only such agreement in a decade), which was then to be implemented at national and regional levels. With a multilevel governance approach, the paper looks at the extent to which social dialogue on Active Inclusion at the EU level, in six EU countries (France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and six regions (Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, Lower Silesia, Catalonia, West Sweden and Greater Manchester) within those countries was somehow revitalised. The analysis, looking at both top-down and bottom-up processes and based on documentary analysis and interviews, shows that the initiative displays ambiguities similar to those of typical composite EU principles, such as famously the case of 'flexicurity'. The multilevel governance of the EU, including the interaction between 'soft' employment policies and evolving 'hard' Eurogovernance tools, and with poor horizontal and vertical coordination, resulted in multiple distortions of the principle and, over time, to frustration. Unions' engagement varies by level, country and region, reflecting both traditional national approaches and the local perception of 'active inclusion' as an opportunity. Although trade unions were more welcoming of 'active inclusion' than they had been for flexicurity, similar related threats and opportunities led to modest achievements and a gradual fading of the idea at the European and national levels, with some more opportunities however at the regional level. The paper concludes that, if trade unions want to engage with the idea of a European Social Model and with Eurogovernance, they could develop stronger networks among regional organisations.