The Evolution of The Industrial Relations System in The Italian Shipbuilding Industry 1st Edition Alberto Sasco

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The Evolution of the
Industrial Relations
System in the Italian
Shipbuilding Industry
ADAPT LABOUR STUDIES BOOK-SERIES
International School of Higher Education in Labour and Industrial

Relations
Series Editors
Tayo Fashoyin, University of Lagos (Nigeria)
Michele Tiraboschi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)
Author
Alberto Sasco, Employee Relations Manager and Assistant for the HR
Manager at Fincantieri’s plant in Monfalcone (Italy)
English Translator
Pietro Manzella, ADAPT Senior Research Fellow (Italy)
ADAPT (www.adapt.it) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2000 by

Professor Marco Biagi with the aim of promoting studies and research in
the field of labour law and industrial relations from an international and
comparative perspective. Its purpose is to encourage and implement a
new approach to academic research, by establishing ongoing
relationships with other universities and advanced studies institutes, and
promoting academic and scientific exchange programmes with
enterprises, institutions, foundations and associations. In collaboration
with the Centre for International and Comparative Studies on Law,
Economics, Environment and Work (DEAL) at the Marco Biagi
Department of Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,
ADAPT set up the International School of Higher Education in Labour
and Industrial Relations, a centre of excellence that is accredited at an
international level for research, study and the postgraduate programmes
in the area of industrial and labour relations.
ADAPT International Scientific Committee

Bertagna Giuseppe (University of Bergamo, Italy), Bulgarelli Aviana
(ISFOL, Italy), Fashoyin Tayo (University of Lagos, Nigeria),
Frommberger Dietmar (Universität Magdeburg, Germany), Grisolia
Julio Armando (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Argentina),
Hajdù Jòzsef (University of Szeged, Hungary), Kai Chang (Renmin
University, China), Ouchi Shynia (University of Kobe, Japan), Quinlan
Michael (University of New South Wales, Australia), Raso Delgue Juan
(Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay), Ryan Paul (King’s College,
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom), Sanchez Castaneda Alfredo
(Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico), Sargeant
Malcolm (Middlesex University, United Kingdom), Tiraboschi Michele
(University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), Tucker Erick (York
University, Canada).
The Evolution of the
Industrial Relations
System in the Italian
By
Alberto Sasco
The Evolution of the Industrial Relations System in the Italian
Series: ADAPT Labour Studies Book-Series
By Alberto Sasco
This book first published 2017
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2017 by Alberto Sasco
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-5275-0005-5

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0005-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................................ ix
Knowing the Past to Govern the Future
Foreword .................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................. 1

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINCANTIERI AND TRADE UNIONS
IN STATE MAJORITY-OWNED COMPANIES
1. The Industrial Relations System in Italy’s Shipbuilding Sector
in the context of Deregulation from the 1960s to the mid-1980s ..... 1
1.1. State-owned Companies’ Opt-out of Confindustria
and the Conclusion of the INTERSIND ASAPT
Protocol of 5 July 1962 ............................................................... 1
1.2. From “Articulated Bargaining” to “Non-binding Bargaining”:
Italy’s Hot Autumn ..................................................................... 8
1.3. The 1970s: Economic Crisis and the Revival of Centralised
Collective Bargaining ............................................................... 10
2. Developing a Regulated and Participatory Model of Industrial
Relations: The 1984 IRI Protocol ................................................... 12
2.1. The Slow Restoration of Dialogue in Industrial Relations:
The Economic Crisis and the Tripartite Agreements Concluded
at the start of the 1980s ............................................................. 12
2.2. A New, Regulated Industrial Relations Model based
on Dialogue and Cooperation: The IRI Protocol concluded
on 18 December 1984 ............................................................... 16
2.3. The IRI Protocol and the Federmeccanica Document:
Different Proposals, Same Goals .............................................. 20
3. Moving from Public to Private Ownership: New Industrial
Relations Models in State Owned Companies ............................... 23
3.1. The Unsuccessful Implementation of the 1984 Protocol
and the Conclusion of the New Protocol on 16 July 1986 ........ 23
3.2. The Industrial Relations System in State Majority-owned
Companies at the start of the 1990s: Economic Crises
and the Interconfederal Agreement of 21 February 1990 ......... 27
vi Table of Contents
3.3. The Evolution of the Industrial Relations System in Italy:

The Protocol of 23 July 1993 and the Amalgamation
of INTERSIND and Confindustria .......................................... 30
CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................... 35

SUPPLEMENTARY COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE SHIPBUILDING
INDUSTRY
1. Economic Crisis and Business Restructuring: Collective
Agreements concluded by Fincantieri in the 1980s ....................... 35
1.1. Reorganisations and Plans to Restructure the Shipbuilding
Sector: The 1984 Reorganisation Plan and the Creation
of Società Operativa Fincantieri ............................................. 35
1.2. From Reorganisation to Productivity-based Pay:
The Agreement of 14 October 1986 ........................................ 45
1.3. Performance-based Remuneration Systems amid Improved
Relations between Fincantieri and Trade Unions:
The Agreement of 30 September 1988.................................... 50
2. Amendments to and Implementation of the New Variable Pay
Scheme: The Agreements concluded by Fincantieri in the early
1990s .............................................................................................. 55
2.1. The Struggle faced by the Ship-repair Sector and the
Legitimization of the Performance-based Remuneration
System: The Agreement of 12 July 1990 .................................. 55
2.2. Employee Participation as a Starting Point for a New Variable
Pay Scheme: The Agreement concluded on 9 April 1992 ........ 60
2.3. The Agreement of 4 April 1996: Productivity Growth,
Innovation, and New Pay Arrangements .................................. 63
2.4. The 1999 Agreement and the Consolidation of Fincantieri’s
Production Model ..................................................................... 65
3. Agreements concluded at the start of 2000: Revitalisation
and Leadership in High Added-value Industries ............................ 67
3.1. From INTERSIND to FEDERMECCANICA: Fincantieri’s
New Industrial Relations System following the Agreement
of 28 October 2000 ................................................................... 67
3.2. Attempts to Privatise Fincantieri and Amendments to the
Productivity-based Bonus: The Agreement of 15 June 2004.... 70
The Evolution of the Industrial Relations System vii
in the Italian Shipbuilding Industry
CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................ 75

SUPPLEMENTARY COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AT FINCANTIERI:
FROM THE 2008 ECONOMIC RECESSION TO 2016 NEGOTIATIONS
TO CONCLUDE A NEW COMPANY-LEVEL COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT
1. Supplementary Collective Bargaining as a Major Tool to Deal
with the Economic Recession: The Company-level Collective
Agreement of 1 April 2009 ............................................................ 75
1.1. The Shipbuilding Industry’s Economic and Production
Growth in the 2000s ................................................................. 75
1.2. The Serious Economic Recession affecting the Shipbuilding
Industry in 2008: Falling Demand and the Need for
Restructuring ............................................................................ 80
1.3. Collective Bargaining as a Catalyst for Seeing to the Serious
Recession hitting international markets: The Supplementary
Collective Agreement of 1 April 2009 ..................................... 83
2. The Economic Crisis and Production Issues: The Reorganisation
Plan of 2011 ................................................................................... 89
2.1. From 2010 to 2012: The Crisis lingers on in the Shipbuilding
Sector ........................................................................................ 89
2.2. The Reorganisation Plan of 21 December 2011 ...................... 90
3. Market Recovery and the Search for New Forms of Operational
Flexibility: Negotiations to Conclude a New Supplementary
Collective Agreement at Fincantieri ............................................... 93
3.1. First Signs of Recovery in Worldwide Shipbuilding ............... 93
3.2. Negotiations to enter into a New Company-level Collective
Agreement at Fincantieri .......................................................... 95
4. The Supplementary Collective Agreement of 24 June 2016 .......... 98
4.1. New Results-based Pay: Old and New Mechanisms
to Assess Employee Performance ............................................ 98
4.2. New Forms of Occupational Welfare ...................................... 99
4.3. The long-awaited Review of the Remuneration System
and the focus on Training and Outsourcing .............................. 99
4.4. The New Industrial Relations System: The Shift from More
Dialogue to Higher Work Flexibility ...................................... 100
5. By way of Conclusion: Promoting Amicable Relations as a Key
Element to give Fincantieri an International Reach ..................... 101
Bibliography ............................................................................................ 103

PREFACE1
KNOWING THE PAST TO GOVERN THE FUTURE
Alberto Sasco’s research into Fincantieri’s industrial relations system

is scientifically relevant in that it serves as a powerful tool to understand
the complex system of labour relations in place in Italy’s leading industrial
groups.
The originality of this work – which lies in the author’s refined
analysis and critique – has prompted me to write this short preface and is
illustrative of how talented young people like Alberto can become
advocates of change and contribute to Italy’s progress.
It is widely known that Napoleon Bonaparte availed himself of the
services of officials with outstanding skills and “a lot of luck”. Alberto
possesses both these qualities, as his internship at Fincantieri coincided
with negotiations to review the collective agreement. Drawing on the
Finmeccanica’s motto, I have used the word “review” rather than “renew”,
because it was not a mere extension of a collective agreement, but an
opportunity to promote a new culture as regards work organisation and
remuneration, which also led to clashes with trade unions. Consequently,
Alberto, who was at Fincantieri to carry out research, also took part in
negotiations with unions, so that his analysis mingled with both words and
action. Alberto’s youthful enthusiasm gives his work a determined, though
measured, tone, which guides the reader through an extraordinary journey
from past to future. After dealing with previous literature and scientific
texts on the topics analysed, he adds a further element, perhaps the most
important one, discussing a break with the past that future practitioners
will, however, see as a sign of continuity between two eras.
Alberto’s work makes him the ultimate repository of Fincantieri’s
history of industrial relations, as he provides an excellent recollection of
past, present and future events.
The heart of Fincantieri’s industrial relations beats in Alberto’s chest
and gives life to the new world. This is the essence of an ever-changing
1
Marcello Sorrentino, Senior Executive and Vice President of Institutional and
Industrial Relations at Fincantieri S.p.A. from 2014 – 2016.
x Preface
world: making attempts through approximation, knowing the past and

adapting it to changing times.
After all, this is the purpose of forward-thinking people.
FOREWORD
The aim of this work is to provide an in-depth analysis of how

industrial relations in Italy’s shipbuilding sector have developed over the
years, taking Fincantieri – the leading and well-known shipbuilding
company – as a case study. To this end, an investigation of relevant
literature and collective agreements has been carried out to understand
how national and company-level collective bargaining has evolved in time.
Part one of this research describes the industrial relations climate in
shipbuilding between the 1960s and the 1980s and concentrates on a
number of major events occurring at the time, among others the separation
between private and state majority-owned companies in terms of employer
representation. The attempt to seek dialogue to ensure growth of
companies operating in this sector was a distinctive trait of relations
between employers and trade unions.
Part two is concerned with the main elements characterising collective
bargaining entered into at Fincantieri, e.g. the reorganisation process and
the creation of the Societa operativa that took place in 1984. The analysis
of collective bargaining pointed to the willingness of the parties to
increase the company’s competitiveness, investments in research and
internationalisation.
To this end, a number of changes were introduced, among others
variable pay, which was made dependant on productivity and business
efficiency, and more collaborative relations with trade unions.
Part three of this work is divided into two sections. Section one
provides an examination of the supplementary collective agreement
concluded by Fincantieri in 2009 and an analysis of the company’s
restructuring plan that started in 2011. Section two describes the most
relevant moments characterising the conclusion of the new collective
agreement between the company and trade unions following the 2008
recession. Finally, the concluding part of this research focuses on
negotiations leading to the conclusion of a further collective agreement in
2016, placing particular emphasis on the stance of the parties and the
actors involved.
CHAPTER ONE
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINCANTIERI

AND TRADE UNIONS IN STATE
MAJORITY-OWNED COMPANIES
1. The Industrial Relations System in Italy’s Shipbuilding

Sector in the context of Deregulation from the 1960s
to the mid-1980s
1.1. State-owned Companies’ Opt-out of Confindustria and the
Conclusion of the INTERSIND ASAPT Protocol of 5 July 1962
1.1.1. Act no. 1586 of 1965 and the Separation between Private
Companies and State Majority-owned Companies
The evolution of industrial relations in state majority-owned companies

in Italy’s shipbuilding industry should be examined starting from the
establishment and the development of INTERSIND, the main employer
representative in this sector.
Since the 1950s, the General Confederation of Italian Industry
(Confindustria) has represented public companies like Fincantieri for
matters concerning industrial relations and relationships with trade unions.
However, the system in place at the time did not distinguish between the
public and the private sector in relation to labour relations and collective
bargaining.
As one might expect, following the evolution of markets over the
years, many have doubted the ability of a single employer association to
give voice to companies so different from one another (e.g. in terms of
work organization and management). This holds true if one considers that
Confindustria has represented all companies operating in Italy, including
those set up with the aim of promoting Italy’s economic growth.
In this respect, 22 December 1965 is considered as an important date
for the evolution of industrial relations at Fincantieri. On that day, Act No.
1586 was enacted, through which the “Ministry of State Shareholdings”
2 Chapter One
was established to monitor the operations of state majority-owned

companies. In addition, the new piece of legislation determined that state-
owned businesses were no longer compelled to choose Confindustria as
their representative body in negotiations. This move made it possible for
the first time to speak of “effective and actual pluralism” in relation to
employer representation.
As far as trade union aspects were concerned, state-owned businesses –
which for the most part were controlled by two major holding companies
(IRI and ENI) – were represented by INTERSIND (chiefly those run by
IRI) and Associazione Sindacale Aziende Petrolchimiche (mainly those
managed by ENI). As for the Italian shipbuilding sector, INTERSIND has
replaced Confindustria since 1965 in relation to its representative function,
providing support to employers for a number of issues. This might be
linked to the common assumption – which was widespread in the national
economic and social context – that the interests pursued by employers in
the private sector and those of state-owned companies collided when it
came to competitiveness in target markets.
The efforts of drawing a clear line between the management of
industrial relations in the public and the private sector initially remained
on the drawing board, a sort of work-in-progress project.
The period immediately following the enforcement of the 1956 provision
was marked by negotiations during which the bodies representing private
and state majority-owned companies (particularly those run by IRI)
worked together. Therefore, collective bargaining took place in a spirit of
cordial relations and cooperation between all actors involved, favouring
the conclusion of agreements that benefitted all workers.
1.1.2. Centralised Bargaining leading the Industrial Relations Scene in

the 1950s
The conclusion of agreements applicable to all workers in a given

industry was the result of the way in which collective bargaining had
developed at the time. In the years following corporatism, interconfederal
agreements played a major role in collective bargaining. Anti-union
sentiments, which could be found particularly among Italy’s private
employers, significantly limited the ability of trade unions to effectively
pursue workers’ collective interests in the workplace. This sentiment
compelled actors to enter into interconfederal agreements containing terms
that governed workers’ rights and duties, concurrently minimising (or
ruling out) the possibility of resorting to decentralized bargaining to lay
down arrangements which were more specific to a given working context.
The Relationship between Fincantieri and Trade Unions 3
in State Majority-owned Companies
Consequently, the actors involved in industrial relations at Fincantieri

were management and bodies consisting of individuals appointed through
official elections to pursue the interests of workers in a particular company
(so-called internal commissions). However, internal commissions played a
marginal role in terms of employee representation, for they usually
performed consultation functions or were asked to monitor that management
complied with the terms agreed upon in negotiations, therefore depriving
them of any bargaining power. The assumption that internal commissions
could not enter into any form of negotiation with the company was a direct
consequence of the fact that they were not endorsed by employers or by
trade unions.
With employers failing to acknowledge decentralized bargaining, no
agreement was concluded with internal commissions, save for those
intended to extend national provisions to the company level. This also
happened in the shipbuilding industry, for internal commissions only had
an advisory function, without the opportunity to contribute to taking
important decisions in the workplace. As for employee representation,
trade unions were the only bodies that were recognized as bargaining agents,
de facto preventing internal commissions from entering into negotiations.
This closed system – i.e. exclusively based on interconfederal and
collective agreements concluded at the national level – was also the result
of unions’ lack of organisation and facilities at companies. Trade unions
could only negotiate general terms and conditions at the national level –
and to a lesser extent, at the local level – so they were unable to participate
in company-level bargaining. Accordingly, no negotiations took place in
the shipbuilding industry over this period.
1.1.3. The Quest for New Forms of Collective Bargaining: Trade

Unions’ Proactive Approach and INTERSIND’s Inertia
The effectiveness of the centralised collective bargaining system in

place at the time became the subject of a lively debate as early as the late
1950s. This system was in line with employers’ views that the best approach
to carry out negotiations was to regularly renew national collective
agreements, and to deal with specific provisions improving workers’
conditions through company-level collective bargaining. Nevertheless, trade
unions urged employers to amend this model, drawing on the idea that a
new system was necessary aimed at significantly strengthening decentralized
bargaining.
Among other things, the new battle waged by trade unions over
contractual conditions was the result of an evolutionary process that led
4 Chapter One
those involved to set aside their divergent views and encourage the
introduction of so-called “articulated bargaining”.
At first, it was the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions
(Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori - CISL) to display a
willingness to promote a new industrial relations model where company-
level collective bargaining had a primary role. This approach, motivated
by economic reasons, was at odds with that of the Italian General
Confederation of Labour (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro -
CGIL), according to which collective bargaining carried out at the national
level (particularly in relation to pay) was of benefit to all the parties
concerned.
In this regard, and after many years of discussions on this aspect, both
the Italian Labour Union (Unione Italiana del Lavoro - UIL) – which at
first had decided to sit on the fence – and the Italian General
Confederation of Labour (La Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro
- CGIL) started to give thought to the possibility of a new bargaining model
based on agreements concluded at the decentralized level. The common
denominator among all these trade unions – which was also welcomed by
CISL – was that company-level collective bargaining should supplement,
but not replace, negotiations carried out at the national level.
As already pointed out, the evolution of industrial relations and
collective bargaining in the shipbuilding industry was closely related to the
creation of INTERSIND, which served as a representative body for state
majority-owned companies. Accordingly, the newly-created INTERSIND
defined the industrial relations strategies that were implemented by the
companies of IRI, among which was Fincantieri’s holding company.
It should, however, be highlighted at the onset that INTERSIND’s
leeway was rather limited. In its first years, INTERSIND did not have any
branch operating locally. Rather, it consisted of one main delegation, with
some minor groups of union representatives working at a regional and an
interregional level.
On this point, one might note that prior to 1960, that is the year
INTERSIND formally came to being, this body did not feature the
distinctive traits which were specific to an employers association.
Initially, it had a few offices at IRI, and workers were in charge of
dealing with industrial relations and collective bargaining. Consequently,
rather than a representative body in the narrowest sense, INTERSIND
could be seen more as an IRI branch office, which was tasked with
pursuing the interests of its companies in relation to industrial relations
aspects. In the first years, INTERSIND had an advisory role for IRI
companies on union-related issues. However, as already stressed, things
started to change significantly from 1960, that is when INTERSIND was

formally set up. It was the willingness to draw a neat distinction – both
economically and in terms of relations with unions – between private
companies and those in which the State held a majority share that paved
the way for INTERSIND’s formal establishment and recognition.
Accordingly, state-owned companies were given a new organizational
structure, whereby economic and financial strategies were set down by
IRI, while INTERSIND was entrusted with tasks of support and representation
in relations with unions, though the latter could only operate in line with
the strategies put forward by the former.
As for collective bargaining, Fincantieri initially adhered to
INTERSIND’s contractual policy, aligning itself with the national trend
that prioritized a centralised collective bargaining system and the conclusion
of interconfederal and national collective agreements.
This approach also had implications on companies which were part of
IRI. By way of example, the need to stick to strategies laid down by the
employers association in the shipbuilding industry brought about
significant limitations in the industrial relations arena, considerably
minimizing relations between the company and trade unions.
The above seems to depict INTERSIND as a Confindustria branch
office tasked with seeing to issues concerning State majority-owned
companies. This state of play was also encouraged by the willingness of
trade unions to prevent the creation of a gap between the safeguards
granted to workers in the private sector and those operating in State
majority-owned companies.
As will be seen, this approach was mainly a direct consequence of the
little autonomy of this organization, which did not have the power to
conclude separate agreements with trade unions.
1.1.4. From “Centralized” to “Articulated” Collective Bargaining:

The Conclusion of the INTERSIND ASAP Protocol of 5 July 1962
In the first few years of the 1960s, and following the establishment of
INTERSIND as an employer representative body, the evolutionary process
of industrial relations at Fincantieri gained significant momentum, chiefly
in relation to collective bargaining. In this respect, the first steps towards
enhancing bargaining autonomy came in 1962, although the industrial
relations climate in which collective bargaining took place was anything
but peaceful.
As already pointed out, with economic conditions slightly improving –
particularly when compared to the dark days following World War II –
6 Chapter One
trade unions claimed more room to manoeuvre. They showed an interest in

industry and in the opportunity to put in place a new model of collective
bargaining on the employer’s premises. This sentiment became widespread
in the shipbuilding industry, where unions were increasingly concerned
with industrial policies implemented at the company level.
Thus, union representatives wanted to set up a system that, while
acknowledging the primacy of collective bargaining, introduced decentralized
bargaining. Obviously, this intention ran counter to that of Confindustria
members, who argued for a centralized collective bargaining system, to be
implemented through interconfederal and collective agreements concluded
at the national level. Their stance was the result of hostility towards trade
unions, which characterized most Italian employers in the private sector.
The latter thought that there was no point in entering into negotiations
with trade unions locally, therefore resisting an industrial relations system
featuring different bargaining levels.
The first significant change to Italy’s bargaining structure took place in
1962 following the renewal of the national collective agreement in the
metalworking sector. Over the same year, negotiations were characterized
by heated confrontation between the parties, particularly because trade
unions wanted to include the introduction of a new contractual system into
the bargaining agenda.
As seen, the proposal that Italy’s industrial relations system should
include so-called “articulated bargaining” was met with resistance by
Confindustria, while INTERSIND appeared more willing to consider this
possibility.
In all likelihood, INTERSIND’s reaction stemmed from its will to
make the distinction between the two representative bodies even clearer,
therefore promoting continuous dialogue with trade unions rather than
engaging in an all-out battle. Accordingly, trade unions and INTERSIND
concluded a fully-fledged protocol on 5 July 1962 laying down new
guidelines on collective bargaining in state-owned companies. Rather than
the separation between the two bodies that took place a few years before, it
was this document that marked INTERSIND’s move away from
Confindustria. This holds true in consideration of the fact that private-
sector employers held onto their view that collective bargaining should
take place at a national level and see to more general aspects.
According to the new protocol, collective bargaining consisted of three
main levels: national (industry-level) collective bargaining (e.g. in the
metalworking sector); sectoral bargaining (which concerned the following
six sectors: steelmaking, shipbuilding, electro-mechanical engineering,
steel production (secondary fusion), avio-moto-auto (i.e. the production of
aircrafts, motorcycles and automobiles), and mechanical engineering in a

broad sense); and company-level bargaining. These three bargaining levels
were organized according to hierarchy, and referral clauses (clausole di
rinvio in Italian) laid down in national collective agreements specified
those aspects that could be negotiated at each level. So, for example,
sectoral bargaining was concerned with work organisation (e.g. working
time and changes to the employee grading system) and remuneration (e.g.
minimum wages, benefits for more vulnerable workers).
As for company-level collective bargaining, negotiations involved
bonus schemes (e.g. production bonuses or new piecework schemes) and
aspects related to working tasks (e.g. the introduction of performance
evaluation). Accordingly, the protocol concluded on 5 July 1962 set forth
a comprehensive range of provisions to regulate collective bargaining.
However, while assigning a major role to decentralized bargaining, the
new piece of legislation still regarded it as a method to supplement
national collective agreements, in line with CGIL’s views.
Indeed, the protocol seemed to meet the pressing requests made by
trade unions, in relation to acknowledging the legitimacy of contractual
clauses determined in company-level collective bargaining. It was,
however, necessary to point out that it was generally the local branches of
trade unions that engaged in negotiations with state majority-owned
companies, due to the lack of a well-established trade union presence on
the employer’s premises.
Besides representing a major step towards bargaining autonomy, the
protocol gave state majority-owned companies further advantages in
relation to industrial peace. In exchange for the conclusion of the protocol
referred to above, trade unions undertook not to engage in actions intended
to amend terms agreed upon through the new bargaining model.
As already discussed, the conditions laid down in the protocol were
also mandatory for companies in the shipbuilding sector, among which
was Fincantieri. Therefore, it can be argued that all IRI companies
contributed to innovating their own representative body, supporting the
diffusion of company-level bargaining.
The relevance of the 1962 protocol can be better understood when
looking at the increasing significance of INTERSIND in the national
industrial relations scene. Importantly, employer representation in state-
owned companies was initially given a marginal role in the development
of national industrial relations. However, after limiting Confidustria’s
room to manoeuvre and clinching the 1962 agreement with trade unions –
employer representative bodies managed to carve out an increasingly
8 Chapter One
relevant role for themselves, becoming the main driving force in the
evolution of industrial relations.
The attempt to engage in dialogue and to share ideas with trade unions
had the result of making INTERSIND the privileged interlocutor for
negotiating and entering into agreements that would benefit both workers
and employers.
The protocol can also be seen as the harbinger of the separation that
took place a few months later following the conclusion of a separate
collective agreement involving state-owned companies in the metalworking
sector.
1.2. From “Articulated Bargaining” to “Non-binding

Bargaining”: Italy’s Hot Autumn
1.2.1. First Attempts to Promote “Dialogue” and “Participation”
between Employers and Trade Unions: The 1967 Restructuring Plan
in the Shipbuilding Sector
The effects of the 1962 Protocol also manifested in the following years,
leading Fincantieri companies and state-owned ones to seek cooperation and
collaboration on a continuous basis.
The renewal of metalworkers’ collective agreement in 1966 is a glaring
example of this approach. INTERSIND – on advice from the Ministry for
State Shareholdings – pledged to seek agreement with trade unions on new
aspects that could help bring together the needs of employers and those of
the social partners.
In this respect, it was significant that a Circular issued by the Minister
on 16 December 1965 invited public offices to “extend union rights to
public-sector companies” to foster “collaboration that goes beyond mere
formalities”. The sharing of views and ideas was one of the most relevant
effects of the collective agreement concluded in the shipbuilding sector,
the financial and productive situation of which was particularly
troublesome at the time. The sector’s negative trend was due to the serious
economic crisis affecting Europe, which had to deal with Far East
countries’ increasing competitive levels in relevant markets.
The struggle faced by employers called for immediate steps to keep the
sector’s production and economy afloat. Accordingly, a restructuring plan
for the shipbuilding industry was agreed upon on 29 November 1967.
Apart from entailing a number of obligations for the companies operating
in this sector, this measure was a significant one in that it was the first
time that a restructuring plan received trade unions’ full approval.
1.2.2. Representation Crisis and Social Struggles: The Rise of the

“Non-binding bargaining” System
The development targets laid down in the 1962 protocol – which had
already been discussed by INTERSIND and trade unions as early as 1956
during talks to renew the national collective agreement – went unmet and
were set aside by the end of the 1960s. During the renewal just referred to
above, some major difficulties arose at the time of setting down referral
clauses, putting a strain on the climate of participation and collaboration
that had just been established. The 1962 restructuring plan failed to take
off for several reasons, among which were trade unions’ lack of a modern
approach to collective bargaining and employers’ difficulties in terms of
industrial planning, particularly among state majority-owned companies.
Eventually, the development plan laid down in the Protocol came to
nothing in a slow but inexorable fashion.
Compounding the picture was the increasing difficulty to decrease the
gap between the bodies representing state-owned companies and Confindustria,
due to the attempt of the latter to carve out a major role for itself and to
modernize industrial relations. From that moment, INTERSIND could no
longer rely on Confindustria support to envisage new rules on industrial
relations and collective bargaining.
This state of affairs came to a head in 1969, as talks to renew
metalworkers’ collective agreements took place in a particularly charged
atmosphere. This period was called the “Hot Autumn” and featured
significant social unrest, a tool used to emphasize the need for employment
protection. Social agitation also resulted in the passing of Act no. 300 of
the Workers’ Statute in 1970 and in other major changes that upset the
fragile balances of Italy’s industrial relations system.
Riding the wave of discontent – which by now had spread all over the
country in a number of sectors fuelled by industrial unrest and student
protest – trade unions demanded more and more employment protections
for workers. In the shipbuilding sector, trade union protests concerned
remuneration, particularly for piecework. Besides that, negotiations at
company level focused on alternative and more general aspects than those
permitted by referral clauses laid down in collective bargaining. This was
the backdrop against which metalworkers’ collective agreement was
negotiated, and trade unions made far more demands than those they were
entitled to pursuant to the 1962 Protocol. Evidently, union claims were
met with disapproval by state majority-owned companies, leading to
disagreement regarding the issues delegated to decentralized bargaining.
As a direct consequence of this state of play, the system based on
10 Chapter One
derogation clauses no longer applied, although providing a major

contribution to concluding the 1962 Protocol. At the time of its
implementation, the derogation system referred to above clearly identified
the terms associated with each bargaining level (national, sectoral, and
company level). Another consequence of this situation was the end of the
industrial peace trade unions undertook to maintain in exchange for the
development of company-level bargaining.
From then on, trade unions felt empowered to take action to prompt
changes or to conclude agreements at any bargaining level. In addition, as
collective bargaining was no longer based on delegation clauses, no links
existed among bargaining levels, with this lack of coordination that
translated into more uncertainty.
Therefore, a shift took place from “articulated bargaining” to “non-
binding bargaining”, whereby bargaining agents at company-level were
given free rein concerning terms and conditions which were up for
discussion, favouring the development of decentralized bargaining. The
latter was also empowered to amend the terms laid down in national
collective agreements, seeing that it had unlimited operational powers and
no limits were imposed about its remit.
With both the 1962 Protocol and the system granting state majority-
owned companies (e.g. Fincantieri) and INTERSIND a leading role in
industrial relations no longer in place, the latter lost momentum at the
national level, indirectly benefitting Confindustria.
Consequently, the first years of the 1970s witnessed the successful
attempt from private-sector employers to smooth over relations with trade
unions, especially because of the spirit of renewed collaboration
characterising relations in companies represented by Confindustria.
Accordingly, in the period immediately following 1968 social protests,
the equilibrium characterizing employer representation was once again
called into question. Confindustria took the lead and, while championing
decentralized bargaining, attempted to restore friendly relations with
INTERSIND.
These reconciliation efforts were aimed at promoting cooperation to
benefit both the parties.
1.3. The 1970s: Economic Crisis and the Revival

of Centralised Collective Bargaining
As seen, state majority-owned companies suffered an identity crisis at
the start of the 1970s. Unlike in the past, INTERSIND was nowhere near
being able to serve as a representation body and provide national
guidelines about collective bargaining and industrial relations. Fincantieri,

and other state majority-owned companies more generally, concluded that
it was no longer possible to implement new lines of industrial policy, nor
guidelines as regards relations with trade unions, without considering the
position of private-sector companies on this matter.
The foregoing aspects led INTERSIND and Confindustria to reconcile,
a process that was seen as necessary as it was meaningful. Benefitting
from the hurdles faced by the former, the latter regained a leading role in
the industrial relations arena, and speculation mounted that INTERSIND
could re-join Confindustria, a possibility which was not seen favourably
by representatives of the IRI Group.
Rather, a need arose in the shipbuilding sector, and more generally in
state majority-owned companies, to share practical guidelines on industrial
policy – particularly in terms of innovation – to boost business
competitiveness in the markets concerned. As increasing and intense
competition characterised this sector, taking steps to increase productivity
and efficiency and to fill the existing gap between Fincantieri and major
international competitors became a matter of urgency.
The changes just described should be also considered against the
difficult economic background of the latter half of the 1970s. The effects
of the oil shock – coupled with a particularly tense social context resulting
from past conflicts – gave rise to a situation of profound uncertainty. It
was the oil crisis that best illustrated Italy’s economic distress, which also
produced insurmountable difficulties in some of the largest national
groups (e.g. Montedison) while pointing to the absence of government
policies intended to introduce new technologies (e.g. above all on energy
diversification).
Accordingly, social uncertainty and the serious economic downturn
resulted in an increased “malaise index”. Further, and as is frequently the
case in Italy, the scenario described above led many to postulate that
solutions should come from central institutions. Therefore, besides
worsening the situation faced by Italian companies, the economic and
social crisis taking place in the second half of the 1970s re-established the
centralization of collective bargaining.
By way of example, the measures devised to deal with the crisis (e.g.
restructuring plans) were agreed upon by means of general agreements
concluded at the national level.
The first consequence of this approach was that interconfederal
agreements were given new momentum. They were regarded as the main
tools to prevent the collapse of national industry, both because of the
actors involved and the wider scope of the measures adopted. The fact that
12 Chapter One
the government actively engaged in negotiations was also seen as a

relevant factor. Besides acting as a mediator, the government had also a
say in the conclusion of interconfederal agreements, for instance by
contributing economically and politically. Accordingly, this approach
attempted to avoid that companies solved their problems on their own,
giving rise to a particular collective bargaining system which was
impossible to apply consistently. In some respects, collective bargaining at
a company level was put on hold and, starting from 1977, those employers
negotiating with trade unions operating at the local level were excluded
from a number of tax benefits. The development of a new industrial
relations system then faced a slowdown, and the time-honoured IR model
based on collective agreements concluded at the national level was
resumed and seen as the only possible alternative.
Naturally, the decision to rely on interconfederal agreements also had
positive effects, a nice example of which was the agreement concluded on
25 January 1975 regarding the so-called unificazione del punto di
contingenza. In practice, the amount of remuneration that depended on
cost-of-living increases was now the same for all workers. Standardising
the punto di contingenza was necessary because of the rapid increase in
the cost of living, which in turn was due to higher inflation and
remuneration levels. For this reason, the highest possible punto di
convergenza (i.e. the highest remuneration level for this item) applied to
all workers, thus without making it dependent upon workers’ age or years
of service. Another interesting aspect concerning the status of industrial
relations was the attempt to involve trade unions and to task them with
monitoring restructuring plans and crisis management processes.
2. Developing a Regulated and Participatory Model

of Industrial Relations: The 1984 IRI Protocol
2.1. The Slow Restoration of Dialogue in Industrial Relations:
The Economic Crisis and the Tripartite Agreements Concluded
at the start of the 1980s
2.1.1. New Approaches to Business Management in State Majority-
Owned Companies
The government continued to play a leading role in the conclusion of

agreements at the national level also in the first years of the 1980s. It was
a time characterized by a serious economic recession, although tenuous
signs of recovery were beginning to be reported. Nevertheless, the
economic measures put in place between the end of the 1970s and the start
of the 1980s failed to tackle the grave crisis affecting national industry. A
continuously rising inflation and the absence of deflationary policies
produced an increase in labour costs which employers found difficult to
deal with.
The situation at Fincantieri was not much better, as the need emerged
to find solutions to boost productivity. More generally, the first years of
the 1980s were marked by a change in top management in the IRI Group,
which also brought about a change of course in industrial policy and
development. In this respect, the newly-elected President of IRI, Romano
Prodi, argued for the need of state majority-owned companies to support
and promote their role in markets dominated by private-sector employers.
Prodi himself warned that it could be risky for them to hide behind the fact
that they were state-run companies, prompting members to set in motion
initiatives aimed at favouring the “capitalistic market they are currently
operating in”. Prodi also thought that devising economic measures aimed
at identifying standards to increase competition and quality and a new
industrial relations system involving the main actors of industry had
become a matter of urgency.
Implementing the new measures referred to above was vital especially
in consideration of the fact that most production capacity of state majority-
owned companies, among which was Fincantieri, was used to fulfil
commissions from the State, which therefore served two overlapping roles
(the majority shareholder and the main client). One egregious example of
this could be found in the shipbuilding industry. At the time, Fincantieri
was seriously affected by the recession that hit the shipbuilding industry,
to the point that management started to think that prompt action was
needed to prevent business closure. As will be seen, this state of play was
the harbinger of a major change in the national shipbuilding sector, which
would set the scene for the creation of the Fincantieri operating company.
2.1.2. The New Re-centralisation of Collective Bargaining and the

Conclusion of Tripartite Agreements
As previously seen, attempts aimed at lifting national industry out of

recession included collective agreements concluded at the national level.
Significantly, the first years of the 1980s witnessed the highest degree of
centralization of collective bargaining, as priority was given to the
conclusion of tripartite agreements involving employers, trade unions and
the government. The new structure of these accords was best illustrated by
the so-called “Protocollo Scotti”. This agreement, which was named after
14 Chapter One
the then Ministry of Labour and Social Security, was concluded on 22

January 1983 by government representatives, several trade unions (CGIL-
CISL-UIL), and employers’ associations. The Protocollo Scotti was signed
after months of lengthy negotiations and became the very first example of
“concertation”, i.e. an agreement where the government played a
fundamental role. This Protocol was the result of effective mediation
between public power, entrepreneurs and the social partners and set out to
regulate collective bargaining and economic aspects as well, for instance
by introducing measures to bring labour costs into line with expected
average inflation rates. Still on the economic factors, the principle and the
terms of the agreement attempted to limit costs and to promote
employment, also by means of new flexible forms of working which could
enhance competitiveness of national industry. To this end, the involvement
of the government in negotiations was important, as measures were
envisaged to reduce the social security contributions paid by employers.
As for job-creation initiatives, the aim was that of deregulating the labour
market to facilitate access to employment, while a major overhaul was
needed in collective bargaining to provide a more coherent legal
framework. This is because collective bargaining was highly affected by
the many changes made to the guidelines devised to conclude collective
agreements. Consequently, while at first the aim had been that of
promoting decentralized bargaining, a common conviction prevailed
afterwards that the answer to the problem should have been sought in
interconfederal agreements which applied to all workers. This state of
uncertainty prevented the renewal of many collective agreements between
the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, above all because of
the failure to clearly identify the contractual terms to be discussed on each
bargaining level. Therefore, the above pointed to the need to look for
innovative measures to supply collective bargaining with a well-defined
and shared legal framework. The Protocollo Scotti was a move in that
direction, as the parties aimed to promote a new model of industrial
relations. The key principle on which the Protocol was based and that was
a major source of innovation was so-called ne bis ne idem (“not twice on
the same issue” in English). This principle was intended to prevent the
overlap of different bargaining levels when dealing with the same
contractual issue. This provision was particularly necessary following, on
the one hand, the widespread use of “non-binding” collective bargaining
since the 1970s and, on the other hand, the little space provided to
“articulated” collective bargaining set down in the 1962 Protocol
concluded by INTERSIND and trade unions. Because of the foregoing,
new limitations were placed on the contractual terms that could be

negotiated at company and national levels.
This aspect is clearly outlined in the Protocollo Scotti, in which it was
stressed that decentralized bargaining should, by all means, be regarded as
an alternative to collective bargaining carried out at the national level, by
also referring to a specificity criterion in relation to the topics to be
discussed at the company level. Another feature of the Protocollo Scotti
was the introduction of a cooling-off process. In other words, it was
agreed that industrial disputes would be settled on the employer’s
premises, to promote harmonious participation and collaboration between
employers and trade unions and to find solutions satisfying both parties’
needs.
In a way, the Protocollo Scotti was at the same time the most egregious
example of “tripartite” collective bargaining – where the government was
assigned a pivotal role – and the last successful attempt at implementing
this bargaining model.
The parties involved in the conclusion of the 1983 Protocollo would
convene again to ensure continuity to the economic arrangements
previously laid down. In this respect, the government deemed it necessary
to review the criteria making up the scala mobile (“wage-indexation
system” in English) to promote a gradual and effective reduction of
inflation rates.
This move was hailed by CISL and UIL, which welcomed a reduction
in the cost of living, but was staunchly opposed by CGIL, which at the
time was led by Luciano Lama. As a result, major rifts emerged among
these different sections of trade unions which also had implications at the
company level. For example, workers at Fincantieri were instigated by the
FIOM CGIL and called a strike to protest this provision. Workers’
demonstrations were particularly intense at the Monfalcone plant, which
was home to Fincantieri’s largest shipyard in Italy.
The aspects examined above made it impossible to keep on
implementing tripartite collective bargaining, and the government imposed
amendments to the scala mobile by means of Decree of 14 February 1984,
also known as the San Valentine Decree. Besides becoming the subject of
intense controversy at political and social levels, these changes also
marked the demise of concertation in collective bargaining.
16 Chapter One
2.2. A New, Regulated Industrial Relations Model based

on Dialogue and Cooperation: The IRI Protocol concluded
on 18 December 1984
2.2.1. Promoting and Opposing Dialogue: The New Rift among
Employers’ Organisations over Industrial Relations Governance
In the years considered, employers in Italy were still dealing with
serious economic issues. Like many other national companies, Fincantieri
struggled to keep up with competitors based in Japan and the United
States. The financial uncertainty marking the end of the 1970s and the
beginning of the 1980s prevented employers from focusing on innovative
measures to challenge and prevail over competitors in relevant markets.
Benefitting from the standstill situation referred to above, large
industrialised countries successfully and strategically reviewed the way
they managed the employment relationship. Accordingly, while new
initiatives promoting greater operational flexibility were implemented in
Japan and in the United States, Italy was still affected by an overly
stringent regulatory framework preventing employers from increasing
their levels of efficiency and productivity. This issue was a serious one,
especially among state majority-owned companies. Fincantieri, and
employers in the IRI Group more generally, reported particularly negative
trends, upsetting the Group’s financial stability. As for the shipbuilding
industry, it has already been stressed that the economic downturn brought
about a decline in competitiveness, to the point that many hailed the idea
to develop a rescue plan based on “rationalization and restructuring”.
Consequently, failing the attempt to conclude tripartite agreements, the
quest for solutions to overcome the economic struggle became a matter of
widespread concern in Italy.
For example, among private-sector employers, the abortive efforts to
promote dialogue through tripartite agreements led many to conclude that
the involvement of trade unions was superfluous and that negotiating with
workers was the best way forward.
Once again, employers in the private sector held onto the idea that the
approach based on cooperation with unions was all but an opportunity, for
it was for the company to put in place necessary measures to progress and
enhance competitiveness.
On the contrary, the state of uncertainty reported over the last years
helped state majority-owned companies to regain their high ground in the
industrial relations arena. An example of this was INTERSIND which –
after having kowtowed to policies put forward by Confindustria and given
up on the idea to become an autonomous body promoting new forms of
industrial relations – gathered new momentum and resumed relations with

trade unions, through the same participatory approach used at the time of
its establishment.
The differences existing between employers represented by Confindustria
and those referring to INTERSIND about industrial relations were evident
in the planning of restructuring, that would have a stronger emphasis on
organizational flexibility.
On the one hand, employers in the private sector gave priority to
schemes that were laid down by the company’s governing bodies, without
giving the social partners the opportunity to share them. On the other
hand, state majority-owned companies, among which was Fincantieri,
moved again in the opposite direction, as they thought that full agreement
on the decisions taken would have benefitted the parties involved.
2.2.2. The 1984 IRI Protocol: Objectives and Positions of the Parties
As we have seen, the approach based on openness and participation

accelerated the conclusion of an agreement laying down new guidelines to
practice industrial relations. On 18 December 1984, IRI, INTERSIND, and
CGIL, CISL and UIL ratified a protocol setting down key principles –
based on a participatory and shared approach – to be applied at the time of
concluding new employment relationships in State majority-owned
companies. This agreement was also the result of the willingness to
innovate conveyed by the latter, among which was Fincantieri. The
assumptions underlying this agreement concerned the urge to revitalize
those industries in which companies belonging to the IRI group operated.
The aim was to regain competitiveness, efficiency, and productivity and to
strengthen the position of State majority-owned companies in international
markets by means of restructuring, industrial reorganisation and mergers.
Furthermore, the 1984 IRI protocol would be a key element in the
restructuring scheme put in place for the shipbuilding industry.
According to the underlying principles described above, workers had a
lead role in fulfilling the foregoing objectives, as had proper allocation and
rationalization of resources and amicable relations between employers and
the social partners. Therefore, the 1984 agreement originated from both
State majority-owned employers and trade unions’ desire to renew
relations to enhance innovation in the industrial relations system, although
the latter manifested different stances at the time of negotiating the
protocol. For instance, CISL saw the new direction taken by the IRI Group
– to which the newly-elected president Romano Prodi greatly contributed
– as an opportunity to build up new and effective forms of participation.
18 Chapter One
The same could be said of UIL which, although initially lukewarm about
the conclusion of the agreement, ended up aligning itself with the position
of CISL, thus suggesting that the latter had the most influential role among
the three trade unions. Finally, CGIL initially put forward a “business
plan” (piano d’impresa) to pursue industrial democracy based on the
shared planning of economic strategies and procedures. Subsequently, it
opted to join CISL and UIL by entering into the agreement on the IRI
Group and promoting a new industrial relations model.
2.2.3. The 1984 IRI Protocol: The Setting-up of Advisory Committees

and the Management of Industrial Conflict
As discussed, the 1984 Protocol gave fresh momentum to a cooperation-

based approach to be implemented in State majority-owned companies
(including Fincantieri) to define the role of union representatives within
the company. In this regard, new joint bodies were set up, called advisory
committees, consisting of representatives from companies and trade
unions who were assigned new roles as regards information-sharing. The
aim was to share and evaluate the different measures concerning industrial
policy to come up with the most appropriate solutions for those involved.
An important aspect characterizing the 1984 agreement was conflict
management based on a relational model helping to prevent industrial
action by trade unions. Conflict management was not to be intended as the
employers’ attempt to preclude trade unions from calling strikes, but as a
mechanism to systemize ways to share information so that industrial
action had only to be taken as a measure of last resort. Consequently, the
aim was not that of limiting union activity, as the strike was still a
fundamental element in trade unions’ traditional approach to industrial
relations. Based on this assumption, efforts were made to reduce strike
action as far as possible, significantly benefitting business productivity. In
other words, those concerned attempted to contain, if not to eliminate,
industrial conflict taking place at the company level. The 1984 Protocol
thus pursued a two-fold objective: fulfilling the need of information-
sharing voiced by a number of trade unions and preventing industrial
action as much as possible as demanded by employers, to increase
productivity and efficiency. Therefore, IRI and INTERSIND seemed to
give new momentum to principles like industrial peace while
acknowledging trade unions as relevant consultation actors. For this
reason, management practices in place between the 1960s and the 1970s to
deal with major social protests were reintroduced, yet increasing the
opportunities to meet and share views to avoid that industrial action
prevailed over negotiation. As one can easily understand, transparency

concerning the employer’s decisions was the best way to manage
industrial conflict in a rational and coherent way.
2.2.4. The 1984 IRI Protocol: The New Information and Consultation
System
In reference to the information system, the IRI protocol expressly

provided that the social partners should be heard at the time of “planning,
implementing, and assessing industrial, economic, and employment
policies”. It is important to point out that, unlike Germany’s co-
determination, the agreement concluded in Italy established that information
should be literally passed on from the employer to trade unions with the
support of joint bodies, in order to enable unions to take a position in
relation to the company’s decisions. It might also be apt to clarify at which
point information was shared. Unlike in the past, the employer was now
compelled to make unions aware of which possible industrial policies
were under evaluation before putting them in place. Consequently, in the
1970s the employer would inform trade unions of the strategies devised a
posteriori, giving the social partners a marginal role. Now, those involved
shared company strategies before making a final decision, thus workers’
representatives carried out key functions to identify the best options to
pursue the objectives set. As already stressed, the new information and
consultation system gave a lead role to advisory committees. Being
members of organizations characterized by a pyramidal hierarchy, these
bodies would operate at group, local, and industry levels.
This way, participation was therefore ensured, as was detailed
information sharing. Advisory committees themselves were aware that
they only performed consultative functions, for their opinion did not have
a binding character. This was certainly the direct consequence of the will
of the parties not to turn the industrial relations systems in place at the
time on its head. Significantly, collective bargaining still maintained a
leading role in the definition of guidelines to manage employment
relationships and industrial relations, more generally. Therefore, the 1984
IRI Protocol significantly belittled the functions of advisory committees.
They never played an active role as regards collective bargaining and,
importantly, their advice was not as influential as to affect trade union
negotiations, for example on matters related to employment relationship
regulation.
Among other things, the IRI Protocol had also been vital for
Fincantieri and other companies in the IRI Group to pull themselves out of
20 Chapter One
recession. The conclusion of the agreement meant that trade unions

consented to changes to production processes facilitating business
repositioning. Furthermore, by means of this agreement, trade unions also
agreed to discuss with employers represented by INTERSIND the possible
introduction of new forms of flexibility, such as novel working time
arrangements and new forms of intercompany mobility. On their part,
trade unions showed a willingness to sign the agreement to ensure
workers’ stability of employment and prevent dismissals due to the long-
lasting economic recession. The promotion of employment policies added
to other measures – e.g. restructuring plans – which were a distinctive trait
of the agreement.
While based on full cooperation between the IRI Group and trade
unions, the 1984 Protocol was frequently a source of controversy between
those involved. For example, the shipbuilding and the steelmaking sectors,
which involved many companies in the IRI Group, suffered the most
severe consequences of the international economic crisis. In both cases,
the IRI attempted to deal with this situation through cost reduction
initiatives and a restructuring plan to help the repositioning of the
companies involved. In the opposite camp, trade unions, while
acknowledging the need to take steps to face the serious crisis affecting
employers in those sectors, regarded dismissals as a more effective
solution to increase competitiveness. This move would help the Group’s
fiscal consolidation and would reduce the social consequences of these
measures, both in terms of employment and remuneration.
2.3. The IRI Protocol and the Federmeccanica Document:

Different Proposals, Same Goals
In parallel with the 1984 Protocol concluded between IRI,
INTERSIND and trade unions, a manifesto concerning the management of
industrial relations was also issued by Confindustria, the aim of which was
to set down measures to give new momentum to industrial relations in the
private sector. This “programmatic document” was drafted against the
backdrop of the paralysis affecting private-sector employers as regards
industrial relations, particularly in collective bargaining and relations with
the social partners. The impetus that restored Confindustria’s leading role
as employer representative between the 1970s and the 1980s dwindled,
because of the increasing autonomy of employers represented by
INTERSIND, among which was Fincantieri. This state of affairs would
bring about frosty relations between the two representative bodies. At any
rate, employers in the private sector and State majority-owned companies
voiced the need to introduce clear-cut policies on the way employers

should handle relations with workers and trade unions. In reference to
what has been said so far, and concurrently with what was done for State
majority-owned companies, Federmeccanica (i.e. Italy’s engineering
industry federation) issued guidelines to be used in industrial relations in
the private sector. The fact that this document was issued at the same time
as the one drafted by IRI was not coincidental, but expressed the will to
draw a clear dividing line between the terms laid down by IRI and
Confindustria. Indeed, there appeared to be marked differences between
the two documents, mainly regarding their underlying principles.
Specifically, the IRI Group favoured a system based on cooperation and
collaboration between employers and the social partners, in particular in
business premises. Confindustria took a diametrically opposite approach:
employers in the private sector would implement a system that sidelined
trade unions as far as business decisions were concerned. This new
organizational model made a clear distinction between trade union
relations (i.e. between the employer and trade union representatives) and
company relations (involving the employer and the workers). This
distinction was a significant one, underlining that trade unions had no say
on managerial decisions in the private sector. Consequently, unions could
not challenge employers’ action, for example as regards restructuring,
production planning, technology investments, initiatives to promote
employment and so forth. This firm stance drew on the assumption that
discussing decisions with trade unions about how to restore productivity
and efficiency to increase competitiveness was unnecessary, if not
counterproductive. The main idea was that employers were the only ones
who could understand the needs of their company, thus they had to be
given free rein in relation to decision-making. Afterwards, employers
would apprise workers of their decisions, listen to their opinion and deal
with possible consequences.
The title given to the document presented by Federmeccanica
(“Businesses and Work”, Imprese e lavoro in Italian), was also relevant,
for it highlighted the will of the body that represented companies in the
private sector to convey the idea that employers had full powers in
decision-making in industrial relations. This was also confirmed in the
document itself, which was fully in line with the idea inspiring
Confindustria: the employer was the one that faced risks arising from
entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, relations between the business and
the workers could not be mediated through collective bargaining and,
more generally, by trade unions, which were frequently sources of
conflict. The document also pointed out that industrial relations should
22 Chapter One
aim at promoting aspects like competitiveness, innovation, flexibility of

production, and deregulation of the labour market, so trade unions should
not be allowed to interfere or oppose employers’ initiatives. Of interest
was the fact that this approach particularly concerned company-level
industrial relations, for a need arose, especially in the metalworking
industry, to involve employers and workers without the support of external
actors. Accordingly, Confindustria’s main idea was to promote direct
communication between management and employees, to enable the former
to make decisions (e.g. as regards performance-based pay) in line with
expectations of the latter.
In those years, it was as though a replay took place of what had
happened in the 1960s. On the one hand, companies represented by
INTERSIND promoted a more cooperative and collaborative approach
with trade unions. On the other hand, Confindustria took pains to avoid
close collaboration with unions, particularly as regards managerial
decisions. The impression was that Confindustria wanted to highlight that
workers were perfectly able to deal with consequences arising from
employers’ unilateral decisions on their own. Of course, the intention was
to significantly delegitimize trade unions, assigning them a general
representation role. Trade unions would be entrusted to ensure compliance
with labour legislation and equality of treatment for all workers.
Therefore, it is safe to argue that the attempt to empower trade unions in
companies came to nothing and brought no benefits.
It is also interesting to reflect upon the different effects these two
models produced on conflict management. In the case of State majority-
owned companies, trade unions undertook to engage in industrial action
only after exhausting all other possibilities. The reverse was true for
companies in the private sector, where a growing conflict-ridden climate
restored forms of social protests that were typical of the late 1960s.
Of course, trade unions did not accept submissively this diminishing
role, especially in relation to safeguarding workers’ collective and
individual rights. The fact that they disagreed with what was provocatively
laid down in the Federmeccanica document would set the scene for a new
wave of strikes and protests. The above speaks volumes of the different
ways industrial relations were managed in private-sector companies and
State majority-owned companies. IRI and INTERSIND took care to
develop industrial relations even further. Conversely, Confindustria
appeared to take steps in the opposite direction, promoting principles like
“primacy” and “denial” which put at stake the very existence of the
industrial relations system.
As the following years clearly showed, the model put forward by

Federmeccanica was doomed to failure, due to the impossibility to obtain
satisfactory results without the involvement of all actors traditionally
engaged in negotiations and in the setting-up of business plans. On the
contrary, and although with the amendments made over time, the protocol
concluded by IRI and INTERSIND represented a sound base upon which
other arrangements could be made to increase the competitiveness of
national industry.
3. Moving from Public to Private Ownership:

New Industrial Relations Models in State-owned
Companies
3.1. The Unsuccessful Implementation of the 1984 Protocol
and the Conclusion of the New Protocol on 16 July 1986
3.1.1. The 1984 IRI Protocol: Organisation and Implementation Issues
The Protocol concluded on 18 December 1984 under the auspices of

INTERSIND by the IRI Group and a number of trade unions (CGIL,
CISL, UIL) introduced some innovations in Italy’s industrial relations
system, most of which were initially implemented on an experimental
basis. For this reason, it was agreed that the new provisions would remain
in force for a transitional period of 12 months, during which the parties
would meet regularly (every four months) to assess their effectiveness.
This clause was the result of the shaky relations between employers in the
public and private sector and the social partners at a national level and
justified a system based on close participation and collaboration, the
outcomes of which were unpredictable. IRI and trade unions’ wariness
could also be motivated by their will to overhaul the industrial relations
system, by enabling the union to issue specific opinions which – albeit not
binding – could influence employers’ industrial policies.
The nature of trade unions themselves added a further hurdle to the
implementation of the protocol. As one can imagine, despite their good
intentions as regards cooperation with employers, a number of practical
difficulties were reported by advisory committees at the start of their
activities, also at Fincantieri. Traditionally, trade union demands were
made through industrial action (e.g. protests), so they struggled to amend
their own modus operandi. Employers too faced some issues when
devising management plans because they had to be shared with advisory
committees before implementation. As was usually the case in State
24 Chapter One
majority-owned companies, this problem was particularly felt in the

shipbuilding industry. One might also note that attention was initially
given to make advisory committees at sectoral and group levels fully
operational, in accordance with what was specified by the protocol. Trade
unions took advantage of this state of things, as workplace bargaining was
not seen as a stage to discuss business guidelines, but only to negotiate
company-level collective agreements.
The fact that the system set in motion would require all actors to have
specific roles compounded the picture even further. In this respect, when
the first advisory committees were set up, employers’ representatives were
assigned more powers than trade unions. As a result, workers’ interests
were affected, for union representatives, who were members of advisory
committees, could exert little influence on the preparation of company
plans. They were unable to provide qualified advice on restructuring plans
or economic strategies put forward by company management. For their
part, employers expressed some reluctance to share their initiatives, as
they thought trade unions were unable to fully grasp the meaning and the
extent of the proposals to increase productivity.
The challenges faced when explaining the details of the 1984 protocol
– particularly by trade union confederations – caused many provisions to
remain unimplemented. For instance, the lack of necessary information
about cool-off periods triggered industrial action even following the
conclusion of the protocol. The agreement was intended to prevent strikes,
but this provision was ignored and the IRI frequently called for the
involvement of union confederations to settle the dispute and end protest.
Another peculiar aspect, which initially gave rise to much uncertainty
concerning the application of the protocol, was the powers of advisory
committees and the opportunity of trade unions to challenge the
employer’s decisions in court where deemed appropriate. On this point, it
is important to stress that the absence of a specific provision prohibiting
trade unions from initiating legal action against the employer – say for
failing to provide information – would lead one to turn to the courts in
compliance with ex Article 28, as this aspect was not discussed by
advisory committees. This was an important aspect because lacking
legislation and the fact that advisory committees were not fully operational
legitimized trade unions to refer to the courts to have their rights
recognized rather than seeking settlement directly with the employer,
particularly at the local level. As we will see, the 1986 protocol would be
particularly noteworthy on this aspect.
3.1.2. The Natural Expiration of the 1984 Protocol and the Conclusion
of the new IRI Protocol of 16 June 1986
The shortcomings and the challenges faced while the 1984 protocol
was in place on an experimental basis led the parties to sign another
protocol on 16 July 1986. Based on the same principles as the former, the
new protocol represented the end of the transformation process started as
early as 1984.
The 1986 protocol clarified all the ambiguities characterizing the
previous agreement. On this point, Fincantieri and other companies within
the IRI Group voiced the need to make the new provision fully operational,
by introducing more certain terms. Accordingly, the parties took pains to
produce a text that could give clear-cut answers to issues like links
between the terms laid down in the protocol and the involvement of the
courts; powers granted to advisory committees; expertise of the members
of the advisory committees; review of the consultation function within the
IRI Group.
One peculiarity of the 1986 agreement was the possibility to turn to the
courts on aspects concerning the interpretation and the implementation of
the terms laid down by the protocol. On this point, the parties agreed,
although not without difficulty, that in order to make the terms sufficiently
clear and support the attempt to promote full cooperation between
employers and trade unions, it was necessary to detail the steps to be
followed in the event of litigation. Consequently, the 1986 protocol
established that in the event of problems concerning the interpretation and
the implementation of some of its terms, they needed to be initially
examined by a special joint committee made up of three labour lawyers
from the IRI and three from unions. A second phase would have taken
place if the matter had not been solved, by involving an “informal
arbitration body” and entrusting a special committee to solve the issue.
The latter consisted of the three former presidents of Italy’s Constitutional
Court. This model clarified that possible differences concerning the proper
interpretation and implementation of the terms laid down by the protocol
would not be dealt with by third parties but by the signatories to the
agreement, thus favouring the collaborative climate on which the whole
document was based. The decision to refer to an informal arbitration body
to settle possible litigation resulting from interpretation problems also
reasserted the principle that negotiation was the cornerstone of industrial
relations at Fincantieri and, more generally, at companies within the IRI
Group. The functions of advisory committees were also carefully
reviewed, particularly those of consultation bodies operating at the local
26 Chapter One
level, which were set up in areas where IRI Group presence was significant
or where decisions regarding industrial or economic policies could greatly
impact social and occupational trends. The amendments made to functions
were necessary to give effect to the activities of committees. The latter
were therefore given authority to promote active policies to boost
employment, to take measures to enhance local markets and to create job
opportunities.
As previously seen, the 1984 protocol had given advisory committees
little room to manoeuvre mainly because of some members’ lack of
technical know-how, which particularly affected those appointed by trade
unions. On this matter, the changes made to the Protocol of 16 July 1986
were noteworthy, as now joint committees were authorized to seek the
help of experts to see to particularly complex issues. Accordingly, an
increasing number of committees were given the opportunity to turn to
professionals with the necessary expertise to provide effective and targeted
advice on employers’ proposals. Furthermore, the joint character of these
bodies also allowed for expert advice to be accepted by the majority of
their members, a necessary move to prevent reaching a standstill as
regards advice provided on a given matter. In this respect, it was also
established that if a majority vote was reached on the opinion of a
professional, the motivations of those opposing it were also to be reported.
This was done for the sake of transparency and can be seen as a direct
consequence of the friendly climate referred to above. The last innovation
brought by the 1986 protocol was the creation of the so-called “IRI
Committee” that replaced the consultation procedure previously in place.
The IRI Committee was another joint body with advisory functions made
up of twelve members: six were appointed by IRI and a further six from
the national confederation of the trade unions involved (CGIL, CISL, and
UIL). The setting up of this new committee was relevant as this body was
tasked with sharing and endorsing information regarding IRI Group’s
main strategies. Equally important was the agenda for meetings held by
the newly-created committee, which was more detailed than in the past.
These joint bodies could be very different from one another in terms of
presence and activities. A nice example of this was the role they had in the
shipbuilding sector, and particularly at Fincantieri, during the transitional
period that would produce major changes within this sector. For this
reason, the shipbuilding industry provided fertile ground for cooperation
between employers’ associations and trade unions. The state of
uncertainty, which was also the result of the crisis affecting international
markets, was seen as a pretext for discussing restructuring plans to revive
the whole sector otherwise doomed to face a decline. At first, some
difficulty emerged – particularly on the part of trade unions – regarding

compliance with the terms of the protocol. However, as months passed by,
the spirit of cooperation and collaboration prevailed over the traditional
conflict-based approach, setting the conditions for further arrangements
that would prove decisive in the development of Italy’s shipbuilding
industry.
3.2. The Industrial Relations System in State Majority-owned

Companies at the start of the 1990s: Economic Crises and the
interconfederal Agreement of 21 February 1990
3.2.1. IRI’s Struggle: Economic Recession and Privatization Plans
In the first years of the 1990s, Fincantieri, and the IRI Group more
generally, had to face a particularly severe economic crisis. The financial
problems that had already arisen in the 1980s persisted and put a huge
strain on companies that were majority-owned by the State. As will be
seen, this state of affairs will produce a major overhaul of Italy’s industrial
system, leading to the gradual dismantling of IRI and, consequently, of
INTERSIND.
Therefore, in the time period under examination, Italy presented a
particularly unstable financial market. An ever-increasing cost of living –
coupled with limited labour market flexibility – brought about serious
economic problems among State majority-owned companies, including
Fincantieri.
While playing a major role, and representing hundreds of companies
from many industries at the national level, the IRI Group was experiencing
a challenging period in financial terms. Reasons for this included major
shortcomings in the industrial model implemented and the little relevance
of the sectors most companies represented by IRI operated in. The latter
was true in consideration of the fact that the IRI Group included small-
and medium-sized companies that were majority-owned by the State and,
as such, had to take account of government directives at the time of setting
up their development plans. Consequently, if companies in the private
sector had more freedom of action and succeeded in devising restructuring
plans that even involved workforce reductions, employers in the
shipbuilding industry were unwilling to promote innovation in terms of
work organization and productive models.
The idea to put in place novelty measures to tackle the deep economic
crisis did not appeal to companies at the IRI Group, perhaps on the
assumption that the government would have stepped in if they had needed
28 Chapter One
financial support. This worrying situation reared its ugly head in 1992
when the IRI Group turned into a joint-stock company and was required to
make its balance sheet available to the public, which of course revealed
that the company was experiencing tremendous financial strain. The lack
of prospects to give the Group a new lease of life generated the feeling that
something needed to be done to lift IRI’s companies out of the economic
recession. Gradual privatization was the solution put forward, through
which companies that were majority-owned by the State would be given
full autonomy as regards their management, finances, and relations.
Private ownership was therefore seen as the only way forward to enable
companies to raise profit, along with innovative measures to increase
competitiveness in the target market. It is worth stressing that the
privatization process initiated by IRI was similar to others taking place in
the rest of Europe. The international economic crisis urged a number of
countries to take measures to support their failing industrial models. In this
sense, privatization was an effective tool to enable companies to operate
freely and to help put public finances back on track, seeing that state
funding was no longer needed.
Returning to Italy, it bears repeating that the difficulties referred to
above also affected the shipbuilding industry. Increasing international
competition called for drastic decisions in order to help the shipbuilding
industry and Fincantieri leave the economic crisis behind. Putting in place
the changes illustrated above was particularly challenging between the
1980s and the 1990s, especially in relation to production. On this point,
one might note that most production in the time period examined
concerned warships which were commissioned by the State to update the
national fleet. This emphasized the paradox that the Italian government
was the most important (and often the only) client of Fincantieri – which
was a member of the IRI Group and therefore owned by the State itself.
While ensuring some stability as regards the number of orders, this state of
affairs resulted in the impossibility of Fincantieri to draw up a new
economic model which – by promoting innovation and new forms of work
organization – could partly fill the gap with international competitors,
especially those from the Far East.
3.2.2. The Setting up of New Industrial Relations Guidelines for State

Majority-Owned Companies at the start of the 1990s: The Agreement
to Review Labour Costs and the Contract System of 21 February 1990
As far as industrial relations were concerned, the first years of the

1990s witnessed efforts from Fincantieri and other State majority-owned
companies in the IRI Group to put the 1984 and the 1986 protocols into
effect, which had been the starting point of most negotiations entered into
in the 1980s. Those years also marked attempts at introducing further
changes to industrial relations to make employers competitive again. To
this end, on 21 February 1990 INTERSIND, ASAP and trade unions
finalized an interconfederal agreement to put in place a new collective
bargaining system targeting Fincantieri and other companies that were
majority-owned by the State. More precisely, the parties sought to
maximize participation and cooperation between employers and trade
unions, with such collaboration that should prioritize the setting-up of
innovative measures as regards cost planning and competitiveness. In this
respect, the parties agreed on the need to keep inflation rates low, to step
up productivity through internationalization and the search for new market
segments, to promote employment and improve working and living
conditions.
From an industrial relations perspective, the agreement intended to set
in motion a thorough review of the collective bargaining system, to ensure
“certainty” and “forward planning” in employment relations. Therefore,
both parties to the new agreement opined that a rethinking of current
bargaining levels ought to take place as regards actors involved and their
powers, by also laying down special clauses (clausole di non-
riproponibilità in Italian, or “non-repeatability clauses” in English)
making sure that each issue was addressed at only one bargaining level.
This was done to ensure that decisions reached on a certain bargaining
level on a given issue were final and not affected by talks taking place at a
higher level of collective bargaining. Furthermore, the newly-signed
interconfederal agreement amended the maximum duration of collective
agreements concluded at the national level, which was now set at 4 years,
giving the opportunity to engage in decentralized bargaining every two
years during this period to put forward amendments, whereas necessary.
Therefore, collective bargaining carried out at the company and local
level supplemented that performed at the national level, and each
negotiation level was given clear functions. To be more precise, national
collective agreements regulated employment relationships and basic
remuneration in general terms, whereas decentralized bargaining dealt
with more specific aspects like work schedules, shift working, possible
reductions of working time and so forth. Company-level collective
bargaining was also tasked with putting in place new benefit systems (e.g.
performance-related pay).
The use of these bonus schemes was already widespread in many
European countries and constituted one of the most significant novelties to
30 Chapter One
pursue higher levels of flexibility and remuneration. Variable pay

arrangements were widely used to improve performance by awarding
bonuses to those workers who satisfied given levels of productivity.
Importantly, Fincantieri had put in place a bonus system similar to the one
laid down in the 1990 interconfederal agreement as early as the end of
1980, standing out as the precursor of the arrangements introduced later
on.
A first attempt to put into effect the foregoing agreement was the
renewal of the national collective agreement of State majority-owned
companies operating in the metalworking sector, which took place on 14
December 1990. The aim of the parties to the new collective agreement
was to take measures to increase productivity, efficiency, and profit to
meet ever-challenging market needs. Furthermore, the parties agreed that
it was necessary to ensure more certainty as regards cost planning and to
put in place an industrial relations system as the one envisaged in the 1990
interconfederal agreement. The parties also urged to devise a novel
collective bargaining system where actors’ powers and authority were
reviewed, while the relevance of other aspects was also reasserted (e.g. the
“non-repeatability clause”, the 4-year limit for national collective
agreements and the 2-year limit for collective agreements concluded at the
company level). Finally, reference was made to cooling-off procedures,
with the parties that pledged not to promote actions or measures intended
to amend the provisions set forth at different bargaining levels.
3.3. The Evolution of the Industrial Relations System in Italy:

The Protocol of 23 July 1993 and the Amalgamation
of INTERSIND and Confindustria
3.3.1. European Community (EC) Limitations and New Rules on
Collective Bargaining: The Protocol of 23 July 1993
As illustrated in the previous chapter, a profound economic crisis

affected Fincantieri and Italy’s shipbuilding industry at the start of the
1990s. The struggle faced by the sector accelerated changes to business
structures, particularly among State majority-owned companies, and the
search of responses to tackle the crisis, which culminated in the conclusion
of the Protocol of 31 July 1992. The new agreement – which involved
three parties through the so-called “tripartite system” – pursued a two-fold
objective: reviewing income policies and reducing inflation. It could be
seen as a new approach to concertation, as the government’s engagement
was decisive to lay down effective guidelines to pull the country out of
recession. Further, the terms of the agreement were fully in line with those
of similar arrangements that were widely used in Europe at the time. In the
past, faced with the need to promote economic recovery to comply with
criteria to access the EU, European countries had encouraged the conclusion
of agreements between central governments and the social partners, which
were immediately applied nationwide. By means of the 1992 Protocol, the
signatory parties (i.e. the government and the social partners), agreed that
it was imperative to reduce inflation rates. To this end, to shore up public
finances, the time-honoured wage indexation system (scala mobile in
Italian) was set aside and replaced with a monthly flat rate called “the
special remuneration item” (elemento distintivo della retribuzione in
Italian). In addition, a number of changes occurred starting from 1992,
particularly in companies that were majority-owned by the State, while
reorganization at Fincantieri had already initiated in the mid-1980s. Also,
serious economic and financial hurdles led to the privatization of all
companies represented by IRI, while the Ministry for State Shareholdings
was shut down to comply with the need to optimize resources. There was
overwhelming agreement that companies represented by IRI should make
efforts to gain more autonomy in their target markets and stop relying on
government directives and funding.
The changes described so far were part of an innovation process that
culminated in the signing of the Protocol of 23 July 1993, which impacted
all industries, including the shipbuilding sector. The agreement was the
endpoint of a transformation process started with the agreements
concluded in the 1990s, and aimed at supplementing economic reform
with a clear definition of contractual arrangements. Significantly, the 1994
agreement provided that the parties agreed on the measures needed in
terms of income policies, although its distinctive trait was the review of
the industrial relations system, therefore heavily drawing upon the 1994
accord between INTERSIND-ASAP and trade unions. To begin with, the
Protocol confirmed that a “two-tier” bargaining system was to be used:
national-level collective bargaining and company-level collective
bargaining (or, alternatively, collective bargaining carried out at a local
level). In addition, negotiations on collective agreements concluded at the
national level had to concern their extension – from 3 to 4 years – save for
remuneration issues, which had to be reviewed every two years. The latter
certainly was a peculiar aspect and was linked to the principle that it was
time for collective agreements concluded at the national level to adjust
minimum remuneration levels to expected inflation rates. Conversely,
company-level collective bargaining was tasked with devising measures to
increase productivity and efficiency and with putting forward cost-saving
32 Chapter One
mechanisms. Again, it was stressed that collective agreements signed at

company level would deal with issues that were not covered by other
bargaining levels (the “non-repeatability” clause previously referred to).
Further, decentralized bargaining could also negotiate aspects related to
remuneration, but only those set forth by the parties on a case-by-case
basis (e.g. productivity bonuses). The way it has been described above, the
1993 protocol seemed to stick to the “ne bis ne idem” principle and gave
the bargaining system a pecking order. Reinforcing this point was the fact
that collective bargaining carried out at the company level (or at the local
level) could only cover those subjects assigned to it by collective
bargaining performed at the national level. The determination of a certain
time period within which collective agreements could be renewed was still
another aspect that is worth a mention. More specifically, a time limit was
set by which negotiations could take place and during which industrial
action was prohibited (the so-called cooling-off period).
Furthermore, in the event of delays in signing the new collective
agreement, workers were entitled to special compensation (indennità di
vacanza contrattuale in Italian) which depended on the expected inflation
rates applied to minimum remuneration levels. The provisions set down by
the 1993 protocol were even more important if one considers that they
provided collective bargaining with a higher degree of certainty.
3.3.2. The Amalgamation of INTERSIND and Confindustria and the

Creation of a Common System of Industrial Relations
Many events took place in the 1990s that bore relevance to Italy’s
industry, particularly to Fincantieri and to State majority-owned
companies. IRI’s massive privatization pressured many employers into
reviewing many of their corporate aspects thoroughly. The shipbuilding
sector experienced dramatic productive and economic growth, which
brought consequences also in relation to employer representation. While
Confindustria maintained and strengthened its role even further following
the privatization process initiated by IRI, INTERSIND underwent a slow
decline that would lead it to merge with Confindustria at the end of the
1990s. The unification process between these two employers’ associations
took many years to complete. At first, INTERSIND served as a
representative of its many companies, leaving to Confindustria the power
to safeguard their economic interests. Only in 1998 was the amalgamation
process finalized and the conclusion of a specific protocol formally
marked the handover, thus Confindustria became the representative body
of all IRI’s companies. Fincantieri was also significantly affected by this
decision, as from now on the latter was represented by Confindustria on

industrial relations matters.
1998 was a watershed year for Italy, as it marked the dismantling of one
of Italy’s leading employers’ associations. INTERSIND had been
established in 1958 to create a divide between private-sector companies and
State majority-owned companies. In its forty years of operation,
INTERSIND managed to carve out a distinctive role for itself, contributing
to developing Italy’s industrial relations. The quest for innovation
characterizing INTERSIND helped the social partners to familiarize
themselves with “participation” and “collaboration” as regards relations
between employers and trade unions. Without this contribution, these
would have been foreign concepts in Italy’s industrial relations for a long
time, if not forever. Accordingly, from 2000 on, private-sector companies
and those majority-owned by the State contributed equally to the evolution
of Italian industrial relations. Following a period during which no
significant changes were made to the industrial relations system, in 2009
the parties – e.g. the government, employers’ associations, and some trade
unions (CISL and UIL) – concluded a framework agreement to reform
contractual arrangements. At first, CGIL expressed criticism towards the
reform so it did not sign the agreement.
Through this new agreement, the parties bid to overcome the issues
existing in the 1993 Protocol, which had been already pointed out by the
commission evaluating the 1997 Giugni Protocol. For instance, they
vigorously campaigned for decentralized bargaining, which had already
been the cornerstone of the 1993 Protocol. Upholding the use of two
bargaining levels (national-level and local or company level collective
bargaining) and reducing contract duration to three years were the key
points of the 2009 agreement.
Two further objectives were set. As far as economic terms were
concerned, the aim was to adjust remuneration to the cost of living,
replacing the time-honoured expected inflation rate with the Consumer
Price Index (Indice dei Prezzi al Consumo or IPCA in Italian). As for
contractual issues, the hierarchical principle according to which
decentralized bargaining could cover only those subjects that were
assigned to it by national collective agreements or by legislation was
reasserted. Moreover, for the first time, decentralized bargaining was
given the power to amend terms laid down by collective bargaining carried
out at the national level in peius, i.e. making them less favourable. While
this could be done within certain limits, it was clear that the aim of the
agreement concluded in 2009 was that of giving new momentum to
decentralized bargaining. Agreement reached at the company or at the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
but not that of Touggourt: their posts upon the edge of the desert
were ultimate posts as are the European garrisons to-day.
But in one thing the sense of change is justified, and that is the fall
of the woods. Here Islam worked itself out fully: its ignorance of
consequence, its absolute and insufficient assertion, its lack of
harmony with the process and modulation of time, its Arabian origin,
are all apparent in the destruction of trees. If the rainfall is as
abundant as ever, it is not held, for the roots of trees are lacking, and
if it be true that trees in summer bring rain of themselves by their
leaves, then that benefit is also gone. There are many deep
channels, called secchias, traversing the soft dust of the uplands,
with no trace of bridges where the Roman roads cross them: they
are new. They are carved by the sudden spates that follow the
cloudbursts in the hills. Here, perhaps, in the Roman time were
regular and even streams, and perhaps, upon their banks, where
now are stretches of ugly earth quite bare, the legionaries saw
meadows. At any rate, the trees have gone.
Up in the higher hills, in Aurès and the Djurdjura, upon the flanks
of the mountains where the Berbers remain unconquered, and where
the melting of the snows give a copious moisture, forests still remain.
They are commonly of great cedars as dark as the pine woods of the
Vosges or the noble chesnut groves by which the Alps lead a man
down into Italy. But these forests are rare and isolated as the
aboriginal languages and tribes which haunt them. You may camp
under the deep boughs within a march of Batna and then go
northward and eastward for days and days of walking before you
come again to the woods and their scent and their good floor of
needles in the heights from which you see again the welcome of the
Mediterranean.
This lack of trees the French very laboriously Story of the
attempt to correct. Their chief obstacle is the Determinist
nature of that religion which is also the hard barrier raised against
every other European thing which may attempt to influence Africa to-
day.
There was a new grove planted some ten years since in a chosen
place. It was surrounded with a wall, and the little trees were chosen
delicately and bought at a great price, and planted by men
particularly skilled. Also, there was an edict posted up in those wilds
(it was within fifty miles of the desert, just on the hither side of Atlas)
saying that a grove had been planted in such and such a place and
that no one was to hurt the trees, under dreadful penalties. The
French also, as is the laudable custom of Republicans, gave a
reason for what they did, pointing out that trees had such and such
an effect on climate—the whole in plain clear terms and printed in
the Arabic script.
There was, however, a Mohammedan who, on reading this,
immediately saw in it an advertisement of wealth and pasture. He
drove his goats for nearly fifteen miles, camped outside the wall, and
next day lifted each animal carefully one by one into the enclosure
that they might browse upon the tender shoots of the young trees.
“Better,” he thought, “that my goats should fatten than that the mad
Christians should enjoy this tree-fad of theirs which is of no
advantage to God or man.”
When his last goat was over two rangers came, and, in extreme
anger, brought him before the magistrate, where he was asked what
reason he could give for the wrong thing he had done. He answered,
“R’aho, it was the will of God. Mektoub, it was written”—or words to
that effect.
The platform of the Rock of Cirta is the place Cirta or

from which the effort of the French over all this Constantine
land can best be judged, for it is the centre round which nature and
history have grouped the four changes of Barbary.
The rock is like those headlands which jut out Constantine

from inland ranges and dominate deep
harbours; it is as bold as are such capes, and is united, as they are,
with the mass of land behind it by a neck of even surface—the only
passage by which the rock itself can be approached. On every side
but this, very sharp slopes of grass, broken by precipices, plunge
down in a mountainous way to the valleys, and at the foot of the
most sheer of these there tumbles noisily in a profound gorge the
torrent called Rummel, that is, “The Tawny,” for it is as yellow as a
lion or as sea-sand.
The trench is so deep and dark that one may stand above it
towards evening and hear the noise of the water and yet see no
gleam of light reflected from it, it runs so far below. It is this stream
which has made on the Rock of Cirta (though it is out of the true Tell
and far into the Tableland) a habitable fortress and a town; the town
called Constantine.
Such sites are very rare. Luxemburg is one, a stronghold cut off by
similar precipitous valleys. Jerusalem is another. Wherever they are
found the origin of their fortress goes back beyond the beginning of
history, they are tribal, and their record is principally of war. So it is
with Cirta. The legends of the nomads say that they descended from
some enormous dusky figure, a God of the Atlas and of Spain—a
giant God marching along the shores of the ocean followed
perpetually by armies. Even this first of African names was mixed up
with Cirta, for the title of the rock was that of his loves, and the name
Cirta given it by these horsemen of Numidia was the name of their
universal mother. A man can be certain, as he walks along the edges
of the place to-day and looks down into the gulfs below it, that men
have so moved here amid buildings and in a fixed town with altars
and a name ever since first they knew how to mortar stones together
and to obey laws. The close pack of houses standing thus apart
upon a peak has in it, therefore, something consistently sacred.
Permanence and continuity are to be discovered here only among
the cities of Africa; and its landscape and character of themselves
impress the traveller with a certitude that here will be planted on into
time the capital of the native blood: too far removed from the sea for
colonisation or piracy to destroy it: too well cut off by those trenches
of defence to be sacked and overrun: too peopled and well watered
to decay.
The town has been taken in every conquest, and every conqueror
has boasted himself to have overcome the walls of rock, the
hundreds of feet of sheer climbing. The boast is manifestly absurd,
though the temptation to make it was irresistible. When Cirta has
been stormed only one gate admitted the invaders, and that was the
isthmus which leads from the platform of the summit to the tableland
beyond. It was here that Massinissa and here that the Romans
entered. By this entry came the French soldiers, and the market
which stands there is called to-day “The Place of the Breach.”
There is a place in Constantine where the full The Inscriptions
history of the town is best felt, and that is in the
new Town Hall, which stands upon the edge of the rock upon the
side furthest from the river and looks at the storms blowing over the
uplands from Atlas and driving low clouds right at the crest of the
walls. In this building are preserved (in no great number) the
antiquities of the place and its neighbourhood. Here is a little silver
victory which once fluttered, it is thought, in the hand of that great
statue which adorned the Capitol, and here are long rows of tombs
from the beginning of the Italian influence till the time of the martyrs:
you see carved upon them the slow change of the mind until the last
of the pagans boast of such virtues and have already that sort of
content which the acceptation of the creed was to bequeath to
succeeding time. This record of the epitaphs, though brief, is perfect;
you watch at work in them the spirit that made St. Cyprian
transforming the African soil; but their chief interest is in this, that
they are, as it were, a rediscovery of ourselves. You dig through
centuries of alien rubbish overlying the Roman dead, and, when you
have dug deeply enough you come suddenly upon Europe. For
twelve hundred years an idiom quite unfamiliar to us has alone been
spoken here: beneath it you find the august and reasonable Latin,
and as you read you feel about you the air of home. For all those
generations the manifold aspect of the divine was forgotten: there
were no shrines nor priests to rear them. Then, deep down, you
discover a tablet upon a tomb, and, reading it, you find it was carved
in memory of a priestess of Isis who was so gracious and who so
served the divinities of the woods that when she died ingemuerunt
Dryades: twice I read those delicate words, delicately chiselled in
hard stone, and I saw her going in black, with her head bent, through
groves. A trace of colouring remains upon the lettering of the verse
and a powerful affection lingers in it, so that the past is preserved.
Islam destroyed with fanaticism the figures of animals and of men:
here in these European carvings they are everywhere. The barbarian
creed conceived or implanted a barbaric fear of vines: here you see
Bacchus, young, on the corner of a frieze, and gentle old Silenus
carried heavily along.
If it is from the Rock of Cirta, from Cæsarea or

Constantine, that the recovery of the province Cherchel
and its re-entry into Europe is best perceived—for there stands the
unchanging centre of Africa, and there can all the threads of her
destiny be grasped—yet there is another place far westward and
down upon the shore, where the wound that Europe suffered by the
Mohammedan invasion is more marked and long eclipse of our race
more apparent. It is the Bay of Cæsarea.
Constantine is so necessary to Africa that its very name (and it is
alone in this among all the cities) has been preserved. Cæsarea has
lost its name and its dignity too. The Barbarians have come to call
her “Cherchel”: as for her rank, it has been forgotten altogether; yet
this port was for a hundred years peculiar among all others in the
Mediterranean—it was more remote, more splendid, and more new.
The accident which created it lent a great story to its dynasty, and its
situation here, along the steeper shores that lead on to the Straits
and to the outer ocean, lent some western mystery to it and some
appeal.
Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, was famous Cherchel
throughout the Mediterranean for her beauty.
The last of her lovers—it is well known—was Anthony the Triumvir,
who had desired (until he saw her) to inherit from Cæsar and to rule
the whole world. This ambition he abandoned after one battle, lost, it
is said, through her folly; and soon after that defeat they chose to
die. But a fruit of their loves, and a picture, perhaps, of his courage
and of her magnificence, survived in a daughter whom her mother
had dedicated to the Moon and had called Selene. This child was
married out into Barbary, to the king of the nomads, and here, in
Cherchel, she held with her husband for many years a court which
gathered round it the handicraft of Corinth, the letters of Athens, and
some reflected splendour from the town of Rome.
He was of those horsemen who had now for two centuries served
Carthage as mercenaries or Rome as allies. To the cities of the sea
coast, which were Italian or Asiatic in blood, these riders of the
uplands had been outer men. They appeared barbaric to the end,
and, at the very end, it was their blood, perhaps, that rebelled
against the tradition of order and that joined first the Vandal and then
the Arab. The king was dark and a barbarian. This wife who was
sent to him inherited the broad forehead of Rome and the silence of
Egypt, and was also an heiress to the generals of Alexander. There
met in her, therefore, all those high sources from whose unison
Christendom has proceeded. She came west to a new land that did
not know cut stone and hardly roads: in a little time she had built a
city.
By some economic power which no one has explained, but which
may be compared to the wealth of our smaller independent States
to-day and their merchants, to Antwerp or to The Hague, this city of
Mauretania rose to be a marvel. The porticos stretched along that
rise of land, and a mile of new work, columns and pedestalled
statues and arcades, looked down from the slope and saw, making
for the shore, perpetual sails from the eastward. Great libraries
dignified the city: a complete security and a humane consideration
for the arts continually increased its glory. The passion for
scholarship, which was at that time excessive, may have touched the
palace here with something of the ridiculous. The king wrote,
dictated, or commanded a whole shelf of books and was eager for
the pride of authorship. But no other note of indignity entered their
State, and all around them, looking out to sea, was a resurrection of
Greece.
This queen and her husband lived on into old age thus, untroubled
in their isolation and their content, and destined (as they thought) to
leave a dynasty which even the domination of Rome would protect
and spare.
Nothing is left. Rome seized their town at last. Their descendants
perished. All Mauretania was compelled to follow the common line of
unity. For four hundred years it has no history save that under the
Roman order it endured and increased. The Vandals passed it by: it
might still stand had there not fallen upon it the Mohammedan
invasion which everywhere destroyed, or rather abandoned, a
Roman endeavour. The neglect which was native to the Arab, the
sharp breach which he made in tradition, ended Cæsarea. To-day, a
little market town, a tenth of the old capital, barrenly preserves a
memory of those two thousand years. A few fragments which the
plough recovers or which the builders have spared are gathered in
one place: the rest is parched fields and trees.
One conspicuous monument survives to The Aqueduct
emphasise the retreat of the empire. It is
something the Arab could not waste because it did not lie within the
circuit of the walls: its great stones were too remote from his
buildings to be removed, and its mass too threatening to be
undermined. It was the Aqueduct. This, for the most part, still stands,
and carries an aspect of endurance which is the more awful in that
nothing else of the city has endured. It spans a lonely valley in which
the bay and the old harbour are forgotten, and it is as enormous as
the name of Rome.
It is more like a wall for height and completeness than are any of
the huge Roman arches I know. Its height is such that it catches the
mind more strongly than does the Pont du Gard, and its
completeness such that it arrests the eye more than do the long
trails of arches that stretch like rays across the Campagna. It appalls
one because it is quite alone, and because the multitude that gave it
a meaning has disappeared. One could wish to have seen this thing
before the French came, when the brushwood of the valley was quite
deserted and when one might have thought it fixed for ever in an
intangible isolation which no European would come again to
reoccupy and to disturb.
Even to-day one may climb to the further, inland, side and look
down the perspective of its arches with some illusion of loneliness,
and live for an hour in the fifteen centuries of its abandonment. Its
height, its fineness, and the ruin of its use are so best seen, and its
long line of purpose, pointing on to a city that no longer remembers
baths or fountains. It is the ceaseless refrain of Africa. Italy, Gaul,
and Spain have ruins like these, but these ruins are right against a
life which has always been vigorous and to-day is especially
renewed: only in this one province of Africa do you find Rome
arrested, as it were—its spirit caught away and its body turned into
stone.
There was last to be seen, before I could The Beginning of

leave this province, the desert and those dead the Journey to the
towns which stand along the hither fringe of it: Desert
the deserted homes of the Romans, and chief among them Timgad.
The Atlas, I had heard, is there at its highest, and the knot of
mountains into which it rises is called the Aurès. Upon its southern
side it fell steeply (I was told) upon the Sahara, and its northern
supported, on the last of the High Tableland, those ruined cities.
Here the frontier legionaries had been posted, and here the Arab
invasion had so wasted the forests and dried up the run of water that
the towns had died at once. This Timgad in particular is famous for
its perfection and for the complete survival of its form, but especially
for this, that you walk along paved streets and between standing
columns and look, from the seats of a theatre, towards a great arch
or gate not yet fallen, and yet never hear the voice of a living man.
I took my way to this place, the last of the towns I desired to see—
the tombstone, as it were, of the empire, the symbol or promise of
the reconquest. I went partly by day and partly by night, partly by the
railroad and partly on foot across the High Plateau southward till I
should come to it. Upon my way I met many men who should,
perhaps, have no part in such a little historical essay as is this, but
for fear I should altogether forget them I will write them down.
The first was an ill-dressed fellow, young, and with very sad eyes
such as men keep sometimes in early life but lose at last as they
learn in time to prey upon others. He had been unfortunate. We went
along together across a plain peculiarly lonely, and towards a large,
bare, isolated rock as high as a Welsh mountain and, as it seemed,
quite uninhabited. We were already in sight of the main range of
Atlas, and in the far ravines was a darkness that might, perhaps, be
made by cedar-trees, but all around us was nothing but bare land
and now and then a glint from salt marshes far away.
I asked him from what part of France he had Story of the Lions
come. He answered that he was born in the
colony. Then I asked him whether the colonists thought themselves
prosperous or no. He said, as do all sad people, that luck was the
difference. Those whom fortune loved, prospered; those whom she
hated, failed. He was right; but when he came to examples he was
startling. He showed me, high upon the rock before us, which I had
thought quite lonely, a considerable building, made of the stones of
the place and in colour similar to the mountain itself. “Beyond this
hill,” he said, “is Batna, and beyond Batna is Lambèse. Since you
are walking to Timgad you will pass both these places, and
everywhere you will hear of the House of the Lions. Then you will
learn, if ever you needed proof, that it is luck which governs all our
efforts in this colony.” I looked curiously at the great house, and
asked him to tell me the story. This he did; and I write here, as
exactly as I can from memory, the story he told.
“In that very place upon the hillside where now stands so huge a
house stood, when we were yet children, a little hut of stone such as
the settlers build, with two rooms in it only, a bed, three chairs, a
table, and a cooking-pot. And to this poverty nothing was added, for
ill-luck pursued that roof.
“There lived under it a man and his wife who had two children.
They had come here to rise with the country (as it is said), but,
instead of so rising, first one evil and then another fell upon them till
their little horde was eaten up and the field also, and the man had to
work for others—a most miserable fate. He got work in the building
of the prison of Lambèse, but, as he was not created by God to be a
merchant or a mortar-mixer, nor even a carrier of stone, he earned
very little and was always in dread of being sent away; and his
companions jeered at him, for the unfortunate are ridiculous not only
among the rich, but in every rank; and not only the rich jeer at
poverty and shun it, but the poor also—indeed, all men.
“In a word, this man was in so miserable a way that at last he took
to following his wife to church and to having recourse to shrines, as
do many men when their afflictions are unendurable, and among
other shrines he went to that called ‘St. Anthony of the Lion.’ Now,
though it is ridiculous to believe that the Lion there helped him, (for it
is not a saint,) yet good came to him through Lions.
“One day, when he had gone off to work with a heavy heart,
leaving in the house but one five-franc piece, his wife, who was now
all soured by misfortune and was wearied out with ceaseless work,
heard a single knock at the door, and when she went to it she found
a nomad boy of the desert from beyond Aurès, who held in his arms
two little cubs with soft feet and peering eyes who were mewing for
their mother: they were the cubs of Lions.
“The Arab boy, who was dark, erect, and strong, said, ‘God sends
you these. They are five francs.’ She answered, ‘God be with you. I
cannot pay.’ When, however, he made to go away silently, without
bargaining, she said, ‘God forgive me, but I will buy them’; for she
thought to herself, ‘perhaps I can sell them again for more,’ for Lions
are rare and wonderful beasts. So she took her five-franc piece from
beneath a leaden statue of St. Anthony in the window, and she paid
the Arab boy from beyond Aurès, from the Sahara, and she said,
‘God save you, the lioness will follow the scent’; and he said, ‘God
will overshadow me,’ and went gravely away, biting the five-franc
piece to see if it was good.
“Now, when her husband came home they decided to go into
Batna and sell the cubs, but their children, for whom they could
afford no sort of toy, were already so fond of the little beasts that
they had not the heart to sell them: they skimped and starved and
ran into debt, but as the love of these Lions increased in their hearts
the more determined were they to keep them; and they used to say,
‘God will provide,’ and other things of that sort.
“The cubs, then, grew to be the size of spaniels, and then they
became grown and were the size of hounds, and soon manes grew
on them and they were the size of St. Bernards, and their eyes grew
bright and shone at evening; and at last they were perfect Lions. But
from a long association with Christian men they were genial,
decorous, and loving, and ate nothing but cooked meat, bread, and
now and then a sweetmeat. Also, they could stand up and beg. They
could roar at command. They could jump over each other’s backs;
they could play as many tricks as a dog. It was in this way that good
came from them.
“For one day, when this man and his wife were in a better mood
and had forgotten their poverty for an hour, there came to them in
the carrier’s cart a parcel of wine sent them by a relative who had a
vineyard. This may have been the turning of their luck: one cannot
tell. Luck is above mankind. But, anyhow, they asked the carrier in
and gave him wine. Now the carrier was a Mohammedan, and
Mohammedans are treacherous, so when he saw two Lions walking
about in a lonely house he did not call it witchcraft, as would a
Christian man, but at once he offered a price for them; but the man
and his wife had hearts so good they would not sell. Then the carrier
changed his tune, and offered to hire them for one week and to pay
for this fifty francs: this they gladly accepted. For the carrier and men
like him are incapable of honour except in one small thing, which is
the keeping of words and dates: in this they are most exact. So at
the end of the week he brought back the Lions, and gave the man
and his wife fifty francs.
“But more was to come. For the carrier (and men like him) see
profit where a Christian man would not see it, and he made a
proposition to these people. He said: ‘Your Lions jump through
hoops, they beg for sugar, and do other entertaining things: now I will
travel with you and them, and half of all we earn shall go to you.’ The
man and his wife were so simple and so necessitous that they
accepted, and the tour began. But That Which Watches Over Us at
last rewarded the man and his wife, for within a week the carrier
died, and they went on up and down the country by themselves with
their children, showing the Lions, till they began to earn incredible
sums. They went to the great towns and to the sea coast. At last
they became so rich that they went to Algiers, and there it is, as you
may imagine, large rents but larger earnings. They lived in Algiers for
one year, and became at last so rich that they crossed the sea and
showed their Lions in Provence, in Lyons, and would have shown
them in Paris but that, by the time they reached Tournus, they came
to their own people and found themselves rich enough. There the
man and his wife remained, but their children, who had been born in
Africa, came back, and here they are now. They have friends to
dinner every day, and all on account of Lions.”
When he had done this story he added, “It is true.” Then we went
on to Batna together without a word, but when we reached Batna we
had dinner together and spoke of many other things, but I have
space for nothing except this story of his about the lions.
Having arrived at Batna, which is the starting- The Bargaining at

place for Timgad and also for the desert beyond, Batna
I found that there was a good road which the French had built going
along a valley under Aurès, but that the distance was over twenty
miles. I wasted the daylight bargaining, for no one would drive me
twenty miles for less than sixteen shillings. It was late, and in my
eagerness to bargain I missed the chance of a daylight march, for it
was within an hour of sunset when the night driver who was to start
on the Tebessa road (which runs near Timgad) a little later refused
me. The poorer people whom I asked told me that no one else was
going eastward along that lonely valley, but that, if I were to reach
Timgad, I must make a night march of it or wait a night over in Batna
itself at an inn.
Adventure is never to be refused, so I went Lamboesis
out eastward alone under the evening, and I was
well rewarded, though I went hungry for hours and was afoot nearly
all the way, for I saw a great sight under the sunset, and I met a man
I shall never meet again.
The sight I saw was Lambèse, which was called Lamboesis by the
Romans, and this is what stamps it upon the mind of a lonely man
before nightfall: not what remains, for hardly anything remains, but
that the fragments which remain of it should be so far apart.
There is a sort of long cup or hollow here The Praetorian
pointing at a spur of the Atlas—that high Tower
mountain which holds up the sky. The big lift of Aurès is on one side
of this hollow, mixing into the clouds, and on the other are isolated
and uninhabited high hills. The very floor of this valley is as high as
the top of Cader Idris is in Wales; the heights beyond are as high as
the Pyrenees; and an air of desertion haunts the place. It is
impossible to forget that the Sahara is near by, down beyond the
crest of the range. For though the land is muddy and the sky full of
rough clouds and rain, yet the rain seems to make no grass and the
land is bare. In such a world there stands up before one a square
and hardly ruined tower.
A man of northern Europe looking at this thing The Vastness of
from the high road cannot but think it Jacobean Lambèse
(if he is English) or (if he is German or French) a thing of the Thirty
Years’ War. It might be later perhaps, the freak of some Highland
landlord or the relic of some local rebellion. It is older than our
language by far, and almost older than the Faith. As one looks at it
one cannot feel but only know its age, and one watches it up an
avenue of stones wondering why it stands so lonely. But one’s
wonder has no stuff in it till one goes on half a mile and more: by the
roadside is a pile of Roman stones. These also stood in Lamboesis.
Then, feeling himself yet within the walls of an unseen city, a man
looks back over the stretch he has come and is appalled. In such a
gaze you look westward towards the light beyond the mountains.
The valley is already dark. The high road which the French have
made glistens as hard as stone under the last light. Trees are still
visible, especially the few mournful and hard pyramids of the
cypress, but the little village, the modern prison (for there is a
prison), and the rare labourers here and there are muffled up in
twilight; and there lies before one a mere emptiness, beyond which,
a long way off, dwindled to quite little, is the Praetorian Tower. A
sharp memory of childhood from beyond years of common
experience so strikes the mind.
The spread plain with its one central tower seems infinite; it is now
without hedges or trees or roofs or men; but once the Legion had
filled up everything.
It was all quite bare as I surveyed it—more The Driver Passes
bare than a heath or a down, and as large as
any landscape you may know.
While I was watching this empty space, and surmising what
contrast it would make with the famous and crowded ruins of Timgad
to which this Lamboesis had been a neighbouring city, as Chichester
is to Arundel—or, better still, as Portsmouth and its armament is to
Southampton and its trade—I heard the rumble of heavy and fast
wheels, and a man driving a coach passed me and then pulled up at
my hail. He was the same man who had refused my bargain an hour
and more before. He was driving the night coach to Tebessa. Not
understanding men, he raised his price. I told him that I would pay
him only what I had offered at Batna, less the price of the miles I had
gone. He would not yield, but he did these three things: first, he
promised to send word, as he passed, to an old Soldier who kept a
house near Timgad that a traveller was on the road; secondly, he
gave me advice, telling me that I should freeze to death by night in
that valley (for it was growing cold and the weather would not hold
under such a sky); thirdly, he informed me of the exact distance,
which was at the thirty-second stone, where there is a branch road to
the right, leading in half an hour up the slopes of the range to
Timgad. Then he drove on, and I spent what was left of a doubtful
light in pressing onwards.
The Cold
A great mass of snow had recently covered
the peaks, and in the valley up which I was trudging freezing gusts
and very sharp scurries of cold rain disturbed the traveller. I had
already passed the last ruins of the Romans and had seen, far off in
the dusk, the last arch of the Legions standing all alone with one big
tree beside it. The west was wild-red under the storm, and it was cut
like a fret with the jagged edge of the Sierras, quite black, when I
saw against the purple of a nearer hill the white cloak of an Arab.
He drove a little cart—a light cart with two The Arab
wheels. His horse was of such a sort as you
may buy any day in Africa for ten pounds, that is, it was gentle,
strong, swift, and small, and looked in the half-light as though it did
not weigh upon the earth but as though it were accustomed to
running over the tops of the sea. I said to the Arab: “Will you not give
me a lift?” He answered: “If it is the will of God.” Hearing so excellent
an answer, and finding myself a part of universal fate, I leapt into his
cart and he drove along through the gloaming, and as he went he
sang a little song which had but three notes in it, and each of these
notes was divided from the next by only a quarter of a note. So he
sang, and so I sat by his side.
At last he saw that it was only right to break into talk, if for no other
reason than that I was his guest; so he said quite suddenly, looking
straight before him:
“I am very rich.”
“I,” said I, “am moderately poor.”
At this he shook his head and said: “I am more fortunate than you;
I am very, very rich.” He then wagged his head again slowly from
side to side and was silent for a good minute or more.
He next said slyly, with a mixture of curiosity and politeness: “My
Lord, when you say you are poor you mean poor after the manner of
the Romans, that is, with no money in your pocket but always the
power to obtain it.”
“No,” said I, “I have no land, and not even the power of which you
speak. I am really, though moderately, poor. All that I get I earn by
talking in public places in the cold weather, and in spring time and
summer by writing and by other tricks.” He looked solemn for a
moment, and then said: “Have you, indeed, no land?” I said “No”
again; for at that moment I had none. Then he replied: “I have
sixteen hundred acres of land.”
When he had said this he tossed back his head in that lion-like
way they have, for they are as theatrical as children or animals, and
he went on: “Yes, and of these one-fourth is in good fruit-trees ...
they bear ... they bear ... I cannot contain myself for well-being.”
“God give you increase,” said I. “A good word,” said he, “and I would
say the same to you but that you have nothing to increase with.
However, it is the will of God. ‘To one man it comes, from another it
goes,’ said the Berber, and again it is said, ‘Which of you can be
certain?’”
These last phrases he rattled off like a lesson with no sort of
unction: it was evidently a form. He then continued:
“I have little rivulets running by my trees. He-from-whom-I-bought
had let them go dry; I nurtured them till they sparkled. They feed the
roots of my orchard. I am very rich. Some let their walls fall down; I
prop them up; nay, sometimes I rebuild. All my roofs are tiled with
tiles from Marseilles.... I am very rich.” Then I took up the psalm in
my turn, and I said:
“What is it to be rich if you are not also famous? Can you sing or
dance or make men laugh or cry by your recitals? I will not ask if you
can draw or sculpture, for your religion forbids it, but do you play the
instrument or the flute? Can you put together wise phrases which are
repeated by others?”
To this he answered quite readily: “I have not yet attempted to do
any of these things you mention: doubtless were I to try them I
should succeed, for I have become very rich, and a man who is rich
in money from his own labour could have made himself rich in any
other thing.”
When he said this I appreciated from whence such a doctrine had
invaded England. It had come from the Orientals. I listened to him as
he went on: “But it is no matter; my farm is enough for me. If there
were no men with farms, who would pay for the flute and the
instrument and the wise beggar and the rest? Ah! who would feed
them?”
“None,” said I, “you are quite right.” So we went quickly forward for
a long time under the darkness, saying nothing more until a thought
moved him. “My father was rich,” he said, “but I am far richer than
my father.”
It was cold, and I remembered what a terrible way I had to go that
night—twenty miles or more through this empty land of Africa. So I
was shivering as I answered: “Your father did well in his day, and
through him you are rich. It says, ‘Revere your father: God is not
more to you.’” He answered: “You speak sensibly; I have sons.” Then
for some time more we rode along upon the high wheels.
But in a few minutes the lights of a low steading appeared far off
under poplar-trees, and as he waved his hand towards it he said:
“That is my farm.” “Blessed be your farm,” said I, “and all who dwell
in it.” To this he made the astonishing reply: “God will give it to you; I
have none.” “What is that you say?” I asked him in amazement. He
repeated the phrase, and then I saw that it was a form, and that it
was of no importance whether I understood it or not. But I
understood the next thing which he said as he stopped at his gates,
which was: “Here, then, you get out.” I asked him what I should pay
for the service, and he replied: “What you will. Nothing at all.” So I
gave him a franc, which was all I had in silver. He took it with a
magnificent salutation, saying as he did so: “I can accept nothing
from you,” which, I take it, was again a form. Then the night
swallowed him up, and I shall never see him again till that Great Day
in which we both believed but of which neither of us could know
anything at all.
We were born, I cannot tell how many leagues apart, in different

climates and for different destinies, but we were two men together in
the night, and, for a short time, we were very near each other
compared with the distance of the stars, or with the distance that
separates any two philosophers.
Many who read this will say they know the The Goat-Story
Mohammedan better than I. They will be right: Again

The Evolution of The Industrial Relations System in The Italian Shipbuilding Industry 1st Edition Alberto Sasco

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The Evolution of the Industrial

Relations System in the Italian

Industry 5 0 The Future of the Industrial Economy 1st

Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre A Chapter in American

Development of the Global Film Industry Industrial

Development of the Global Film Industry Industrial

Industrial Relations in Canada 4th Edition Hedbon

Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry A Study

Italy between the EU and Berlusconi Effects of external

Growth and Decline of American Industry Case studies in

International School of Higher Education in Labour and Industrial

ADAPT (www.adapt.it) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2000 by

ADAPT International Scientific Committee

This book first published 2017

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Copyright © 2017 by Alberto Sasco

ISBN (10): 1-5275-0005-5

CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................. 1

3.3. The Evolution of the Industrial Relations System in Italy:

CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................... 35

CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................ 75

Bibliography ............................................................................................ 103

KNOWING THE PAST TO GOVERN THE FUTURE

Alberto Sasco’s research into Fincantieri’s industrial relations system

world: making attempts through approximation, knowing the past and

The aim of this work is to provide an in-depth analysis of how

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINCANTIERI

1. The Industrial Relations System in Italy’s Shipbuilding

The evolution of industrial relations in state majority-owned companies

was established to monitor the operations of state majority-owned

1.1.2. Centralised Bargaining leading the Industrial Relations Scene in

The conclusion of agreements applicable to all workers in a given

Consequently, the actors involved in industrial relations at Fincantieri

1.1.3. The Quest for New Forms of Collective Bargaining: Trade

The effectiveness of the centralised collective bargaining system in

started to change significantly from 1960, that is when INTERSIND was

1.1.4. From “Centralized” to “Articulated” Collective Bargaining:

trade unions claimed more room to manoeuvre. They showed an interest in

aircrafts, motorcycles and automobiles), and mechanical engineering in a

1.2. From “Articulated Bargaining” to “Non-binding

1.2.2. Representation Crisis and Social Struggles: The Rise of the

derogation clauses no longer applied, although providing a major

1.3. The 1970s: Economic Crisis and the Revival

guidelines about collective bargaining and industrial relations. Fincantieri,

the government actively engaged in negotiations was also seen as a

2. Developing a Regulated and Participatory Model

The government continued to play a leading role in the conclusion of

2.1.2. The New Re-centralisation of Collective Bargaining and the

As previously seen, attempts aimed at lifting national industry out of

the then Ministry of Labour and Social Security, was concluded on 22

new limitations were placed on the contractual terms that could be

2.2. A New, Regulated Industrial Relations Model based

industrial relations – gathered new momentum and resumed relations with

As we have seen, the approach based on openness and participation

2.2.3. The 1984 IRI Protocol: The Setting-up of Advisory Committees

As discussed, the 1984 Protocol gave fresh momentum to a cooperation-

prevailed over negotiation. As one can easily understand, transparency

In reference to the information system, the IRI protocol expressly

recession. The conclusion of the agreement meant that trade unions

2.3. The IRI Protocol and the Federmeccanica Document:

voiced the need to introduce clear-cut policies on the way employers