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IMPROVING PARTICIPATION: THE NEGOTIATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGY IN ITALY AND EUROPE

Giuseppe Della Rocca

This essay will seek to examine a contention circulating among employers, the media, and industrial relations researchers that we are witnessing an inevitable decline in industrial relations as a central regulating system of society. This decline, it is held, is due above all to a decrease in the effectiveness of union action, and the general social and institutional consequences of this.

The reasons for this situation, so different from the one that characterized the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, are well known: they range from the results of a prolonged phase of crisis and economic depression, to the restructuring and contraction of the industrial sector, to the crisis of welfare policies and the joint regulation strategies pursued by many European governments.

However, in addition to these factors, a further element has arisen, one to which an increasingly greater importance has been accorded: technological innovation, considered the greatest threat to collective union action. Although other social and economic factors are represented as being cyclical and/or only partially able to modify the nature of industrial relations, technological innovation is experienced as a structural change and as a factor capable not only of weakening union action but also of changing the very nature of collective bargaining itself. According to such a thesis, the transformation of work lies at the root of a weakening of the union as a form of worker representation; the potentialities of the new technologies, especially of electronics-informatics, constitute a challenge more fundamental than the economic crisis itself to the consolidated practices regulating collective-bargaining relationships.

This essay will attempt to understand how unions intend to control innovation and which social and economic criteria can be adopted to protect and promote workers’ interests.

My hypothesis is that changes in technical-productive structures and the industrial relations system are interactive and interdependent. If technological innovation contributes to defining the nature of work and occupation and this in turn helps to define both the type and method of representation of individual and collective interests, industrial relations traditions are in turn a factor in selecting the type, timing, and characteristics involved in introducing technical-organizational innovations. The relationship between technical innovation and industrial relations is circular rather than unidirectional: the behavior of one helps to explain that of the other; technical-organizational changes, from the industrial revolution to today, demonstrate not only that technological changes influence union behavior but also that the way in which the latter interact influences the work process within which such technology is utilized and implemented. An analysis of the relationship between technological innovation and industrial relations necessitates going beyond the interpretive limits imposed by an exclusively institutional point of view in the study of industrial relations. This latter approach has laid emphasis on a detailed description of the legal structure of collective bargaining, of the history and development of the current themes in the political strategy of each organization. But it has not adequately taken into account employers’ strategies, partly because their political and operational strategies have not been consolidated within any form of employers’ association. The “institution” for the employer is not the employers’ association (as opposed to the workers’ unions) but the enterprise itself. At this level management feels itself to be fully represented, and it is principally here that it is possible to perceive the practices and strategies employed.

The Italian case will be extensively illustrated in this essay. Work transformation will not be examined directly, however. The analysis will focus rather on those union agreements that refer to technical-organizational modifications, the new elements introduced by them into the industrial relations tradition, and those aspects of the introduction of technological innovation that such agreements are to regulate. Changes introduced by these agreements into industrial relations structures and into the procedures and contents of work protection receive special attention. This analysis will be undertaken in sections 1–4. Sections 5 and 6 will compare the Italian case with other European countries. A general convergence between the various countries does not exist. Rather, significant differences persist as a result of traditional industrial relations factors, in contrast to technological ones. However, a persistence of differences does not indicate traditional models that are substantially static but, on the one hand, different ways of adapting union action in each country with respect to technological innovation and, on the other, some convergent phenomena.

For this analysis it is important to consider distinct types of industrial relations traditions, insofar as these imply substantial differences in structure, procedures, and collective-bargaining contents. The first is the type of industrial relations tradition in which a confrontation with technical-organizational innovation takes place, primarily through the control and protection of occupational and craft traditions. This is the case in Great Britain, where the principal characteristics are the decentralization of bargaining (the most important level of industrial relations activity being the workplace at a company level rather than at a national level), voluntarism, and occupational segmentation (union and collective-bargaining organization is, for the most part, divided up on the basis of occupation), and a tradition of conflict. Traditionally, there is a high level of informality surrounding rights and procedures. This informality is part of a system recognized both by unions and by employers, and its origins lie in customs and practices of bargaining that have been more or less consolidated within the various sectors, industries, companies, and occupations. This system functions not only between workers and company but also among various occupational groups in defining demarcations and rights that are continually revised and adapted according to their relative needs and power.

The second type is represented by an industrial relations system heavily influenced by an institutional and normative tradition existing outside the workplace. This is the case of Scandinavia and West Germany, in which work rights are guaranteed by institutions external to the workplace. The characteristics of such systems are a centralization of industrial relations structures; general representation by the unions; and a high level of legislative ruling regarding procedures that regulate the relationship between workers, union, and employers. The control of working conditions takes place, for the most part, by means of external regulations. Such regulations tend to allow unions and workers’ representatives the right of consultation and codetermination on all decisions influencing the workforce. Important differences exist between these countries, to be sure. Certain of them, such as Sweden, tend not to impose specific regulations on working conditions; others, such as West Germany, seek more detailed regulations. Thus, in Sweden, the centralization is accompanied by high union density, and the workplace representation is union based; in Germany, instead, the union density is much lower and formal structures of workplace representation tend not to be union based. The general, and partly generic, nature of such regulations and the insistence that they place on consultation and codetermination procedures give rise to informal negotiations at workplaces and to agreements that are not always consistent with national negotiations.

The third type comprises an industrial relations tradition in which the control of technical-organizational innovation takes place primarily through the protection of unskilled work. Such is the case in Italy, where control over working conditions is carried out in the workplace, but, in contrast to the English case, is both detailed and formal. This system is characterized by a bipolar industrial relations structure, with both centralized and decentralized bargaining; general union representation at the national level and in the workplace; a high degree of politicization of industrial relations, which has led to a plurality of unions organized on this basis rather than that of occupation; and a high level of conflict. The formalization of rights gives importance to the union’s role, to the detriment of the informal power of organized groups. However, such rights, though formalized, are of a grassroots character, being in most cases formulated by means of heavy bargaining, with frequent recourse to collective action due to the employers’ resistance to conceding negotiation rights in the workplace. These and other characteristics of the Italian case will be more fully illustrated in sections 2 and 3.

1. The Characteristics of Industrial Relations in Italy

The foundations of the collective action of Italian unions lie in the primacy of politics. Economic and social difficulties, backward conditions, and the limited industrial development in most of Italy up to the end of World War II have, as far as the unions are concerned, given primary importance to the recognition of their own rights of representation and recourse to political resources. This phenomenon has been explained by Alessandro Pizzorno in the same way in which Gerschenkon defined the birth and process of industrialization in Italy in the last century: starting from a position of backwardness always necessitates an investment of a political nature. In the case of the unions, strong resistance on the part of Italian society to a complete and widespread recognition of bargaining has resulted in explicitly confrontational politics through an elaboration of often highly ideological principles of action. This, in turn, has effected the orientation and the criteria of choice of demand, as well as the modality and forms of aggregation and social solidarity.¹

This form of representation has contributed above all to the development of a centralized type of union organization and industrial relations system. It has consolidated a type of organization that has not been determined spontaneously, as in the case of English and American unions.

The primacy of political action has had the effect of making this very pluralism of Italian union organizations one that is political-ideological by nature rather than occupational, such as is typical of English or other European unions. The centralization is based upon an adherence to three union confederations, divided by differing political traditions, which organize white- and blue-collar workers belonging to all industrial sectors, including agriculture and public service.

The winning of bargaining rights in the workplace (1969) has in part modified this centralized model of organization. The birth of shop or office representatives, organized into factory committees, elected by the workers without reference to a confederation list, has given a more grassroots character to these organizations. The shop steward committees (consigli di fabbrica) represent all three confederations in workplaces, with bargaining rights and the power to sign formal agreements at the factory level. A single line of worker representation at the shopfloor level has meant that since 1969–70 the organization of Italian unions has also been called a divided one, split into two contrasting models: on the one hand, a centralized structure outside the workplace, based upon three confederations, each comprising several industrial unions, which draw up national agreements; on the other hand, the shop steward committees in workplaces, elected by all the workers regardless of the union to which they belong, with the right to sign formal agreements at company, shop, or office level.

Industrial relations are characterized by nearly exclusive emphasis on collective bargaining, with little recourse to the application of legislative rulings. Collective bargaining has been the principal instrument for asserting the unions’ negotiating power over working conditions and the right of disclosure of company information.

The orientation of union and management is conflictual. Collective negotiations function above all to defend the established interests of each party and are directed toward obtaining increasingly greater advantages with respect to those already consolidated. The realization of its aims by one of the parties presupposes, if not “defeat,” in any case a reduction of the economic, normative, and representational powers of the other.

Unlike other countries, the conflictual orientation in Italy has no basic legislation, no arbitration, and/or formalized bargaining procedures. However, bargaining is highly formalized in large and medium-sized businesses with respect to the content of agreements.

The bargaining structure, for the reasons stated, presents itself as bipolar. Decentralized bargaining activity, however, is not consistent with centralized activity with respect to contractual content, such as the amount and type of wage increases. Since 1970 there has been a tendency toward an overlapping of, and interplay between, bargaining levels rather than the creation of a functional division between the various levels, with well-defined procedures and instances with respect to the tasks and contents to be negotiated.²

2. Work Tradition and Bargaining Attitudes in the Workplace

Work tradition in large production units in Italy is based on written rules. Forms of solidarity are not constituted by the skill-based pattern of work but by the characteristics of the work organization in which the worker operates. An increase in workers’ rights is a response to the working conditions of each job, which themselves reflect the operational status of particular technological-organizational conditions. This tradition of formal rights tends to give priority more to job stability than to skill, to the rigidity of rules than to technical-productive innovation and flexibility. Work is mainly understood as the condition required to obtain an income and maintain it rather than as a possibility for individual and group development, open to qualitative improvements (Della Rocca, 1982).

This pattern of work tradition can be explained by considering the various elements that have contributed to its formation: the more recent characteristics of industrial development and management attitudes, the collective and spontaneous response of industrial workers to radical rationalization processes, and the role played by unions in representing the industrial workers’ protests.

This pattern of work tradition is the result of the creation during the 1950s and 1960s of a “new work-force system” within large industrial firms. Various factors had a role in determining its main features:

1. a growing level of fragmentation and rationalization of work in large and medium-sized companies, which was more intense than in other European countries, and gave rise to a steady impoverishment of the quality of work.

2. the low degree of upgrading and labor mobility. An enquiry carried out on a cross-section of workers during the second half of the 1960s brought to light the crisis in careers and the low importance that they have for industrial workers. The results of this study underline the fact that promotion from the shop floor to the office is not appreciable, that such upgrading is insignificant, and that in certain cases there is even a downgrading and a dequalifying process in the internal labor market of the enterprise (Paci, 1972:150-51).

3. lastly, the attempts by employers to create new identities and job profiles based upon job analysis and evaluation, which were intended to replace criteria of worker evaluation that had become obsolete as a result of ongoing technical-organizational change; and the introduction and diffusion of company benefits, linked to company activities but destroying working-class traditions where they existed (Berta, 1983:153).

This tradition of formal rights is the industrial workers’ response to the manufacturing system and the result of a widespread refusal of work in large, rationalized units. The cycle of conflict in the period 1969-72 has provided evidence of this negative attitude. Collective action was oriented toward challenging work organization and caused a crisis, particularly within incentive systems and worker involvement in production. The more important forms of struggle during this period were those based upon a slowdown of the work pace (called, for example, in the slogans of striking workers, the self-limiting of production) in a department or factory (Regini and Reyneri, 1971:74).

The demand for more or less equal wages is the most widespread claim, even though it has varying meanings. Above all, for those workers who most frequently strike spontaneously, it assumes a meaning of solidarity. Across-the-board, or flat, increases tend to underline common interests compared to the practice of percentage increases. The latter, which differ according to worker skill, undermine unity by creating division between groups of workers. The motivation here is one of solidarity, since any reference to job differences is ignored. The voluntarism inherent in the demand for flat increases for everyone lies in the fact that the workers will have to put themselves into identical wage conditions, leaving out of consideration a priori what they are and do within the organization of production. Furthermore, this demand, which has been put forth by hundreds of thousands of workers, rejects the hierarchical significance of worker qualifications and bonus scales as a system of job incentive and motivation (Regini and Reyneri, 1971).

Challenging the organization in factory conflict has led the union to produce a system of formal guarantees, directed toward limiting management power. On the one hand, union strategy has oriented itself toward formal and detailed regulation, modeled on the Tayloristic organization of work, so as to protect workers from more negative effects. On the other hand, it has asked for the abolition and/or complete modification of any kind of job incentive and motivation program.³

Union proposals during spontaneous struggle aim at the abolition of the piece-rate system and at equality in pay. The proposal to abolish or freeze payment by piecework is a strategy that manifests itself to some degree everywhere in large units in the industrial sector.⁴ Even more widespread are active attempts to make the labor factor more rigid: from controls on work rates (including the abolition of time studies in certain production units), workforce size, and breaks, to the limiting of shifts and the abolition of overtime.

For the unions, equal pay, more than the abolition of the piece-rate system, is a choice that favors unskilled workers over those who are skilled. Since 1969 this has meant the abolition of the principle of percentage pay increases, which supported an incentive policy for skilled workers in the national contract. The policy of equality has led to the reduction of the differences of pay classification, the elimination of the lower categories, and the introduction of automatic promotion on the basis of seniority rather than on the skill and performance of the individual white- or blue-collar worker.⁵

Subsequent consideration has highlighted the main limits of this bargaining activity. First and foremost is the limit implicit in the very term challenge of work organization, which presupposes a negative attitude toward a change in the quality of work. Union negotiating strategy is oriented toward a regulation of work at the shopfloor level, based upon the existing work organization. This regulation is put forward as a constraint and not as an innovative factor, and neither does it foresee the possibility either of development or of change in production organization. Such rules, if applied rigidly and without a positive attitude toward the organization, can lead to only one possible result: the decrease of productivity without creating either premises or alternatives for the future (Butera, 1972:9).

No less important is the unions’ failure to appreciate the need for a long-term strategy. The lack of such a strategy has led to much ideological talk of challenging the capitalist organization of work (contestazione dell’organizzazione capitalistica del lavoro) and the power of workers and unions at shopfloor level, without, however, achieving institutionalized rights for union control over the labor market and managerial prerogatives.

Such limits can be seen in the Italian unions’ refusal to find more coherent solutions to the problem of long-term control. The reason for this refusal, or tendency toward short-sightedness, lies in the negative attitude toward any form whatsoever of participation or coresponsibility in the management of either businesses or public institutions, even when dealing with important matters, such as state employment agencies and vocational training. This policy has limited the Italian unions to bargaining over changes in the balance of power in the market and at the workplace, and has confined them to the defense of rules bargained at the shopfloor level.

3. Technological Innovation in Industrial Relations

In Italian collective bargaining there are no specific clauses concerning the regulation and protection of workers facing technological innovation, apart from article 15 of the national contract of the employees of newspaper publishing and printing companies and press agencies.

The absence of such regulations may be due to the fact that information technology is not as widespread as in other countries.⁶ Despite this delay in technological innovation, the principal cause that may explain the absence of any contractual and legislative regulation regarding technological innovation is the tradition of collective bargaining itself in Italy.

Technological innovation is only one element of rationalization as a response to crisis. Such matters as management requests for layoffs and labor mobility inside and outside the company—common phenomena during an economic crisis—have been dealt with generally, but technological innovation as such has not been directly brought up as a subject of negotiations.

Consequently, the effects of technological innovation have been handled within the framework of traditional regulations. Numerous agreements have been made regarding unemployment benefits for temporary layoffs (Cassa Integrazione Guadagni, CIG), early retirement, job mobility, personnel retraining, pay guarantees, and shorter work hours and shifts (the shortening of working hours, for instance, from forty hours per week to thirty-six hours by increasing the number of shifts and making them shorter, from eight to six hours per day. This, however, means working six days per week, that is, on Saturdays). However, it is impossible to identify which agreements make reference to technological innovation as such. Problems related to the handling of technical-organizational innovation are, from the perspective of this tradition, management problems for which union initiative is unnecessary and, if possible, to be excluded. For this reason, the bargaining institutions formed in the 1960s suffice to protect jobs; and consultation and verification procedures have always, at least until 1975, been viewed with suspicion.

At least until 1975–76 company agreements in Italy in nearly every case were not structured contracts with guidelines and timing of the application and consultation phases related to a single or limited number of objectives. Rather, the agreements have been a series of definitions of rules on numerous issues, often very different as far as content is concerned and from which any possibility of experimentation or verification has been excluded.

There are two exceptions to this general picture of company bargaining in Italy: the agreements on work organization and the utilization of the right to the disclosure of information.

The agreements on the organization of work (Organizzazione del Lavoro, OdL) represent the first contractual innovations, promoted by the unions and certain sectors of management, that modify the more rigid and static aspects of the industrial relations system at the workplace. They constitute a model of bargaining, though never explicitly formalized, and represent one of the means by which Italian unions have carried out negotiations with respect to technological innovation as well. Though not making direct reference to such technology, these agreements constitute a way of dealing with it. In particular, with the introduction of automated information systems, organization becomes more and more a part of operative planning (implementation). This is especially true with respect to the increase in automation: the more automation increases, the more organization influences the ways in which the machinery is employed (De Maio et al., 1982). For this reason, processes of organizational development may well be part of the processes of information-systems implementation.

Since the mid-1970s the number of agreements on work organization has grown. What characterizes them is that they entail a global and unified organization model, which, introduced in various phases, is to be managed from within the sphere of industrial relations. The principles, aims, and technical and organizational methods of such plans, as well as the phases, procedures, and content of working conditions, are to be defined in a contract. The nature of this contract is unity of objective and plurality of contents and procedures. It is, moreover, experimental and entails the need for subsequent verifications and possible agreements that would modify and correct the process of experimentation and application.

The Olivetti agreement of April 5, 1971, was the first and became a pattern for further agreements. This agreement granted the union thousands of upgradings and formally committed the company to substantial changes in work and organization. It established an initial industrial relations model that responded to the workers’ and unions’ criticisms of certain elements of the system, particularly piecework and qualification scales—criticisms that represented an ideological and political commitment to eliminate alienating work and to restructure the labor process. The company agreed to this and proposed a new organizational model, namely, “the assembly island.” In addition, the company and the union were to bargain over the aspects that traditionally fall within the competence of the unions and that arise from the model (incentives, work rates, breaks, qualifications) (Butera, 1984:67).

The emphasis of planning is not placed on technology as such but rather on the micro-organization of departments. However, this is understood in terms of a global plan of production as a whole (including process and product technology), and it has thus been called by the unions “collective workmanship.” Both work mobility and learning are defined in terms of multiple skills, which result in a greater technical capacity, a fuller knowledge of the production cycle, and an enhanced capacity to intervene and check production—though such qualities refer more to the group than to the individual workers (Chiaromonte, 1978).

Because the union views this as an experience of new skill capacity and of workers’ judgment and autonomy in the exercise of their own work, the team concept justifies certain aspects such as mobility, which otherwise would have been considered negative. Furthermore, both unions and management have finally acknowledged, to a greater extent than in any other agreements, that certain basic managerial requirements, such as the improvement of productivity, are not necessarily incompatible with others, such as the improvement of the quality of work.

In Italian industrial relations this type of bargaining has had a limited diffusion, and the hypothesis maintained by some that the contents, procedure, and form of this type of contract might be the object of general agreement among the social parties, as has happened in other countries, has never become a reality.⁷ In any case, at company level this experience has provided a model for the rules of the game in dealing with organizational change, particularly in regard to all disclosure of information.

Introducing the right to the disclosure of information has been more straightforward. It has been defined by the regulation of details introduced into the national contracts in 1976 and is hardly anomalous in the European context. This right constitutes a second way in which Italian unions have succeeded in bringing about negotiations on technology.

During the economic crisis of 1975 the unions had requested and obtained rights to the disclosure of information, with the specific intent of urging and demanding union control over prerogatives that are more precisely part of a managerial role. These did not relate directly to production organization but to company policies and, particularly, the capacity for decision and innovation.

By 1977 the right to the disclosure of information was an established fact of industrial reality, at least as far as large businesses were concerned. Though differing from sector to sector, in substance such rights give access to information on investment programs, innovation and technological modifications, subcontracting, the location of new sites, horizontal mobility, and the expected consequences with respect to employment and work organization. With the right to verify and examine information on these, the unions intend to assert the possibility of control.

In many cases it has been used only to inform the union of decisions already made. This denies the union any option in such matters or simply elicits union participation while keeping it in a subordinate role. Information rights represent a turning point in bargaining only in those cases in which a bargaining practice is established that has its own instruments for handling information and the various processes of innovation and/or rationalization to which such information refers.

These are cases in which the right of information disclosure is used with respect to technical and organizational change (Della Rocca and Negrelli, 1983). The agreements on technical innovation cannot be separated from an effective utilization of the right of the disclosure of information. And in these cases it is not so much a form of pressure to force the company to invest in new sites or a control of the company’s financial activities and economic policies as it is an instrument for handling the social effects of technical-productive innovation.

In the latter cases there were important innovative aspects in the field of collective-bargaining. The first, and most important, innovation is that the right of information disclosure allows both management and union to forecast each other’s behavior in the short- and medium-term. Change is therefore created by the movement from a situation in which unpredictability is the rule to one in which the behavior of all parties is known. In this case the diffusion of such information plays an essentially strategic role. The second innovation, introduced by the right of information disclosure, lies in prior discussion of many of the changes brought about by employer strategy. And the third consists of the development of informal relations between union and management. In fact, the lengthening of procedures by means of advance information establishes a period of consultation that precedes negotiations, properly speaking. In a situation of conflict, in which every element is rigorously signed and formalized, the right to the disclosure of information represents the introduction of a consultative phase that does not necessarily end in negotiations and that in any case, precedes them. Consultation does not formally commit the parties or oblige them to take explicit stances as in negotiations, and it may allow for a phase of examination and specific planning on issues that pertain more to the area of company management. This informal activity does not, in its turn, impede a fuller and better informed development of the actual bargaining.

4. Technological Innovation in Industrial Relations: A Summary of Empirical Findings

In this section agreements on work organization and on the use of the right to the disclosure of information with respect to controls over the introduction of information technology will be examined.

Under examination were seventy-six agreements on work organization drawn up in forty-two companies and signed, for the most part, between 1980 and 1984. For some it was necessary to go back to the late 1970s and, in the case of two companies, the early 1970s. The majority concern the iron and steel and engineering sectors, although there are also a significant number from the chemical, textile, and clothing sectors, and a few covering the public services. This confirms a characteristic already pointed out in the European Trade Union Institute’s report on bargaining over information technology, namely, that with respect to other European countries, Italy seems to be the only country whose agreements primarily cover mass production and blue-collar workers instead of public services, public employment, and white-collar workers (Evans, 1982).

Further confirming this are the production areas directly affected by the agreements examined, i.e., those of engineering, assembly, paint shops, and fitting. Office work has become part of bargaining contents only since 1979–80, but usually without going beyond a general reference to the necessity of reorganizing office work and with no indication of the specific characteristics of such change or of the procedures to be used.

The sample is enlarged by another thirteen plans for technological restructuring presented by the employers in the newspaper printing sector since August 1982. The presentation of such plans to local unions is a right signed for in the national newspaper contract. Article 15 of the contract is dedicated to technological innovation and appeared for the first time in 1968. This was quite novel for the period, since the right to the disclosure of information prior to the operative introduction of new technology was maintained for the first time. There are no specifications regarding technology, but it is recognized that information is necessary to lessen the negative effects on employment levels, and very brief mention is made of the necessity to work toward employee upgrading.

During 1979–82 it was partially changed and reinforced because of the possibility of companies’ introducing new integrated systems and the elimination of repeated typing, which gave rise to the problem of “demarcation rules” between the work of typographers and journalists. To protect both unions and printing workers, a detailed phase of experimentation was recognized, as well as the presentation of plans for technological restructuring and the creation of a national joint committee to examine these plans. In addition to the means already existing and those established by the law for dealing with possible redundancies, seven days of additional reductions in work time annually (with respect to the contractual thirty-five-hour week) have been established but are to be used only to avoid redundancies.

A further group of agreements was examined from the 1984–85 period, when such agreements and others directly connected to information technology (with or without using the right to the disclosure of information) became widespread. There are fifty-one agreements, and one can see an increase in union bargaining among white-collar employees, especially in banking and insurance.

The main innovative elements introduced into the practice of industrial relations in large businesses are, in the first place, circumscribed by information procedures. The degree of complexity of such agreements differs greatly from one to another. In the agreements it is unclear whether the information is to be supplied during the phase of analysis, planning, or implementation of the new technology. Broadly speaking, prior means the development of information and consultation activities before or during the operative implementation of systems and machinery.

Our study reveals various procedural types: those concerning the right of information disclosure exclusively and others that foresee consultation, bargaining, verification, and the existence of work groups and mixed committees.

The right to the disclosure of information. This is a right agreed upon in the national contract. Besides confirming what has already been determined at a national level, company agreements apply such clauses and contain either general information on the overall volume of investments or, more often, data concerning levels of technological developments and market strategies, of which the unions take note. The introduction of new technology is, in certain cases, accompanied by specific information giving technical data on the new machinery.

The right of consultation. Within this category fall all types of prior activity that do not limit themselves to the straightforward acquisition of information but allow for the possibility of “joint examinations,” and for the union to express an opinion on specific aspects of technical-organizational innovation, without any obligation on the part of company management.

The most frequent content of such examinations is job design, the way in which experimentation should be launched, the technical criteria and parameters of reference, the content and the scheduling of vocational training, and the effects of technological innovation on working conditions.

The right of bargaining. With respect to all the matters mentioned, some agreements provide for prior activity that is not only of consultation but, more precisely, of negotiation. That is to say, the union has won the right to intervene in implementing organizational change that is generally the prerogative of management. In particular, the most important aspects upon which the union may intervene are decisions with regard to the choice of area in which experimentation is to begin, the technical criteria and parameters of new work organization, the procedures for the formation of work groups, the way in which they should function, and the definition of aspects related to working conditions.

Verification procedures. This right, which is very widespread, differs from those examined up to now in that it is not a prior activity. It nearly always results from the right of consultation, though it takes effect during the implementation stages. In by far the majority of cases the subjects of such verification are the results of experimentation in organizational change (carried out on the basis of previously agreed parameters of productivity), in improvement of product quality, or the rationalization of productive flows.

Steering and consultation committees. In certain companies the definition of procedures is accompanied by the formation of joint committees or planning groups entrusted with specific analysis and planning duties or, very often, those of checking and assessing conditions prior to the enactment of organizational innovation. This is the situation in which an attempt at change in the very model of industrial relations is most evident, moving from traditions of a conflictual nature to institutionalized forms of worker participation.

All the clauses relating to employment security are very important, even if traditional. With respect to employment levels there is a prevalence of clauses that protect against negative effects, with agreements on the recourse to the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni (Unemployment Benefit Fund), early retirement, rules regarding the discipline of intercompany mobility, or a commitment to maintain employment levels. The Cassa Integrazione Guadagni is among the principal public instruments that may give support to technical-productive innovation, since it guarantees the wage and employment of workers who are laid off and allows the company a greater flexibility in utilizing the work force. The use of the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni helps to reinforce the procedural aspect of the agreements. Prior to utilization, this must be approved by the public authorities, following the request of the company and unions. The handling of the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni necessitates meetings and joint analyses by the social parties regarding the reasons for its use and solutions to be adopted.

With regard to employment, another new element to be considered separately is the role assumed by training as a subject of bargaining. In the event of technological change, retraining becomes part of bargaining in the area of workers’ rights. Some types of technological innovation, however, have demonstrated that the role of training in industrial relations cannot be viewed solely as a simple retraining activity but also as an instrument used by companies to develop a new, more general knowledge of a technical-organizational and managerial character.

Training, as has been demonstrated in other studies of collective bargaining, is also important since it represents an intervention by public authorities in workplace industrial relations for the first time in Italy.⁸ In this case the role of public authorities does not lie only in distributing aid for whomever has been temporarily laid off (as is the case with the use of the Unemployment Fund), but also in financing training activities related to technical and organizational projects. In this way state institutions enter into company negotiations, or intervene at least, as a third party in finalizing change and in supervising effects not only on the quantity but also the quality of employment.

Another important element is represented by the number of agreements related to job design and workforce allocation.

The number of clauses in agreements related to job design is fairly homogeneous and allows for the following subdivision: (1) redefinition of jobs; (2) formation of semiautonomous groups; and (3) responsibility sharing in objectives, and the partial elimination of supervisory hierarchies.

Rules regarding job description are the most numerous. Two-thirds of the agreements, in fact, contain general mention of, or specific references to, the redefinition of duties. Often it is a question of job enlargement, or even enrichment. Such duties are normally expanded to include quality and maintenance functions.

The rules relating to semiautonomous work groups, with a redefinition of duties, have been instituted in well over 20 percent of the sample. These cases provide for the formation of semiautonomous groups to replace individual job assignment.

The rules relating to responsibility sharing on objectives, integration between functions, and the elimination of hierarchical roles may be regarded as the most important. A significant number of agreements associate the creation of semiautonomous groups with their responsibility sharing in work objectives, defined generally in terms of quantity and/or with other parameters such as quality, scheduling, consignment dates.

A part of the content of the agreements relates to working conditions, but no important changes have been achieved. Significantly, different elaborations of skill classification and pay policies do not emerge in these agreements, even though new job profiles have been introduced. The sole exception in this context is the introduction of incentive wages in certain agreements, which constitute a new element with respect to traditional industrial relations policy in Italy. There are also few cases concerning the ergonomic aspects of work, such as standards in video display units (VDUs), which contrasts with bargaining in other European countries.

One agreement related to the use of video terminals, however, has the function of protecting workers from having their work computer-monitored at a distance. This IBM agreement, of February 23, 1982, establishes that the “checks on access to all programs, transactions and data will be effected by means of group codes that do not permit the identification of the individual operator,” and guarantees the union representatives in the company the opportunity to check “the state of procedures and programs” so as to be able to verify that they conform to what was agreed upon. It is interesting to note that this agreement came about following a statement made to the Magistrature by a local union, claiming violation of article 4 of the Statute of Workers’ Rights (Statuto dei Lavoratori, 1970).

To sum up, it may be argued on the basis of these data that the orientation of industrial relations in formal and written job rights is changing. This orientation was the product of the large factory system, characterized by a lack of mobility and a poverty of work content. In the agreements previously analysed, the partial abandoning of a written and detailed regulation of jobs, with respect to contents, may be noted.

More than the individual job content, the type of union and worker participation in organizational change becomes the object of dispute and bargaining. Only with participation in organizational change is it possible to discuss the organizational choice to be implemented in the long term, which will then influence working conditions. This explains why, in an age of change and union recognition, more attention is paid to the rules that define procedure rather than results, with discussion of procedures, structures, timing, and the phases of verification and participation between the parties rather than discussion of medium- to long-term effects on working conditions. Participation therefore becomes the bargaining issue in a local context (from which it had been excluded and in which rules regarding it do not exist at an institutional level). Participation, as with technological innovation, has therefore an operational diffusion, linked to chance decisions that are not justified by the negotiating strategy itself.

5. Negotiations on the Introduction of New Technology in Europe

This section will undertake a comparative summary of the impact of information technology on industrial relations in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and West Germany. The results of a recently concluded study⁹ will be utilized, seeking to determine the main characteristics of collective bargaining on this theme; the main problems experienced by unions in negotiating technological innovation; and, where they exist, the most important changes in industrial relations traditions brought about by this type of bargaining in each country. Comparisons between the Italian case and these other cases are also considered.

In Great Britain the most important mechanism for union control of technological innovation continues to be collective bargaining. Where this coexists with other forms of participation, however, such as the “works councils,” or the “joint technology working parties,” it has the potential of prohibiting as well as incorporating such types of activity. The control of technological innovation in Great Britain has been carried out, above all, by means of the technology agreements, a term that indicates a specific contractual model negotiated at the level of the production unit and/or the company. These technology agreements do not modify the English industrial relations structure, which remains decentralized. This itself creates substantial problems in coordinating and learning the extent of their diffusion. The information contained here is drawn from the analysis conducted by Robin Williams (Berta, 1986), who examined about 240 agreements of this type.

The matters dealt with in these agreements are various, ranging from employment guarantees to training, changes in the job evaluation system, and the quality of working life. In the first place, what is most evident in these agreements is the union’s attempt to develop and put into effect rights of consultation and information, beginning with the initial phases of the introduction of new technologies. However, very few of these agreements have resulted in union involvement in the initial decisions. A large proportion of the agreements establish bargaining rights mainly during the implementation phases of the technology, after the principal technological choices have been made but before the final choices regarding instruments and working methods.

With regard to contents, job security is by far the most frequently cited point. Demands for job guarantees are there to eliminate the risk of collective dismissals and to protect the workforce already employed. The reduction of working hours as a formula for avoiding a reduction in the numbers employed, following the introduction of new technology, has been applied in very few agreements, however, despite the emphasis that such demands have been given in official union documents.

The protection of the physical and psychological conditions of workers at video terminals is yet another demand that is very widespread in technological agreements. In contrast, however, to bargaining on clauses regarding ergonomic improvements, agreements concerning job design and the quality of work are very few and rather vague. This aspect has been touched upon in various agreements from the point of view of the protection of specific interests through the definition of demarcation rules. Here the intention is to outline the various areas of skill.

As can be seen, there are many aspects common also to the Italian case. In general, however, what characterizes Great Britain is the emphasis placed upon the protection of occupational interests by the various unions and the competition, not only between management and workers but also between the unions themselves with regard to the enactment of this type of protection. Technological innovation changes the structure of tasks, skills, and occupations, and creates conflict between the various occupational groups with respect to the distribution of costs and benefits brought about by such changes. In the case of Italy and other European countries this phenomenon is not particularly noticeable. In Great Britain, though, because of union fragmentation, this phenomenon is easily discernible in the competition between unions within the workplace itself.

On the basis of this approach it is possible to single out the other new elements, beginning with the introduction of consultation within an industrial relations tradition by nature hostile to the formulation of participatory procedures. As in all cases involving the introduction of the disclosure of information, negotiations are modified by a more participatory attitude as a result of the consultatory phase that precedes them.

However, the way in which information disclosure rights are defined is very often influenced by the way unions have traditionally dealt with the theme of job control. This distinction is particularly important in comparing craft unions with the others. With regard to the craft unions, the disclosure of information relates to specific changes and to immediate objectives in negotiating wages, occupational guarantees, and qualifications. With regard to the other unions, however, the technology agreements have a greater procedural importance, remaining equally valid for any kind of technological innovation, including those to be introduced in the future, giving greater attention and detail to consultative aspects, covering a much larger area of contents and problems and seeking the protection of the largest possible number of workers.

In the second place a greater formalization of bargaining by means of the development of consultation may be witnessed. Consultation on technological innovation is above all related to practice. Most agreements, in effect, contain an assurance by unions that their members would cooperate with changes in equipment and methods in exchange for commitments by management—whether to provide certain safeguards and inducements or to follow certain procedures. However, some of the technology agreements also contain specific provisions that would affect the impact of technology on the regulation of working practices, the bargaining power of labor, and other instruments of union organization. Thus, the agreements include provisions regarding the use of subcontracting, limits on the use of technology, labor demarcation, and the allocation of “new tasks.”

The provisions in the technology agreements regarding task allocation reflect the differing objectives of management and unions in this matter. For the former the aim is to increase labor flexibility; for the latter it is to regulate such flexibility. The establishment of spheres of demarcation in the workplace between different groups of workers (often represented by different unions) has been a major feature of industrial relations in many British companies, especially in manufacturing sectors where multi-unionism, particularly occupational craft union organization, predominates. In all these cases, regardless of how they have been concluded, there is a formalization of rules, tasks, and demarcation lines that previously were either indefinite or subject to informal bargaining.

In the third place, 75 percent of all technology agreements have had one signatory on the union side; this figure underlines the fact that new production and administration systems frequently cross traditional demarcation lines, with a gradual tendency toward a centralization of bargaining at the company level. This phenomenon is the result of a number of factors, beginning with the nature of technological change and the formalization of bargaining itself—both giving rise to the development of union roles of coordination (senior shop stewards) at the company level. The most important aspect is the weakening of the multi-union phenomenon, with the crisis for some of the craft unions and the growth and development of certain occupational unions, particularly those regarding office workers.

In a pure sense the craft tradition of controling entry to, and the monopoly of, certain skills has been eliminated to a great extent, and technological changes have led to the erosion of other skills and to the formation of unions representing all specialized workers in a particular sector (e.g., the typographers’ union, NGA). Certain craft unions have thus been strengthened, but in a way that has altered their nature to some extent, through a modification and widening of the types of skill to be protected.

Besides the change in craft unionism, there has been an increase of influence and membership of the white-collar trade union. In fact, the contractual procedures of the technology agreements to a large extent have originated with, and are used by, the white-collar unions (Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff, APEX; Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staff, ASTMS; Banking, Insurance and Finance Union, BIFU; National and Local Government Officers Association, NALGO). They sign local agreements that are, in certain cases, within the framework of a consultative activity and a bargaining tradition that is centralized and formalized at the company level. This aspect is particularly true among civil servants and state employees. Furthermore, these unions tend to represent the entire workforce, although their number is never as high as among manual workers in the industrial sector.

In Scandinavia the union organization’s most important instrument in controling innovation remains the participatory procedures at company level, regulated and strengthened either by legislation put into effect by a prolabor government or through national agreements that are valid for all workers. Here one is dealing with regulations, therefore, that are external to workplaces and tend to minimize all forms of conflict (considered counterproductive for the country’s economic development), especially at a local level, and to promote a high degree of participation within companies.

There are, however, certain important new elements. In Sweden the Co-Determination Act (1976), though a “frame law” with no specific reference to technology, contains important indications regarding the possibility of negotiations and the working out of common rules. Two aspects of the law increase union power with respect to the employer: negotiation rights are extended to include issues pertaining to the organization and innovation of the productive process; and in many cases the employer must negotiate before making a decision concerning working conditions. Furthermore, in the event of nonagreement over codetermination matters the union interpretation remains in force while awaiting a further deliberation, not, as in the past, the interpretation of the company.

The Co-Determination Act presupposes its supplementation by collective agreements covering the various fields of the act. Central agreements have been concluded in all sectors of the Swedish economy. The first agreement was reached in the civil service sector (1978) and designated several areas for local collective agreements: rationalization and administrative development, planning mobility of employees, personnel development, work supervision, and staff and union information. This agreement includes a more extensive obligation for the provision of company information than the law does. In 1979 an agreement was concluded covering the state-owned and consumer cooperative enterprises. Then, in 1982, after six years of negotiation, an agreement was reached for the private sector.

Following a preamble that calls for a mutual understanding so as to promote company efficiency and profitability, the agreement goes on to specify the areas and themes of codetermination: work organization, technological development, the economic and financial position of the company. In a second section it details how codetermination should be conducted. In the third section the possibility of the union’s introducing its own experts, paid by the employer, is dealt with in detail. The introduction of experts, in particular, represents an important element in employer opposition. The paragraph sanctioning it recognizes that jobs should be open to studies on the quality of working life (another possible area of intervention by such experts relates to the company’s economic and financial problems). The final part of the agreement establishes rules for central negotiations in the event of nonagreement at a local level.

In most branches the codetermination agreements do not differ essentially from the central agreements. There is only one agreement in existence that deals exclusively with the introduction of new technology, the one for the printing industry. This agreement was signed in May 1980 and will terminate in April 1986. It guarantees that the introduction of new technology will not lead to dismissals; instead, journalists, printing workers, and clerical employees will be retrained during working time, retraining plans being worked out by a joint branch council. Under this agreement these three categories of workers will continue to carry out their respective jobs as at present but it will be possible for the jobs to be transferred from one category to another after local negotiations. Local agreements must be approved by the national trade unions.

As far as we are informed, local technology agreements have been concluded between the union of civil servants and, respectively, the Postgiro Service, the National Telecommunications Administration, and the National Government Pay and Pensions Board. The one with the Postgiro is very interesting, being a project agreement concerning the development of a new production system. All these agreements contain statements about the general purposes of new technology, general criteria about work and work organization, and procedures to be followed when introducing new technology (Christis, van Klaveren, and Pot, 1984: 21).

In Norway, by contrast, regulations explicitly concern technological innovation as such and have been fully formulated by means of an initial central agreement between the social parties, which was negotiated and signed in 1975. This agreement contains the same concepts as those described in the Swedish case: a commitment to cooperation by both parties so as to increase productivity; the requirement that employers should keep workers informed, with such information being compiled comprehensibly; and the right of consultation for external experts. There are two main differences with respect to Sweden: first, the workers have the right to elect data shop stewards within the existing system of union representation to supervise and negotiate technological development projects; and second, the employer is forbidden to use the personal data of the workers without their permission.

In both Sweden and Norway, work environment laws establish certain general principles with respect to checking and modifying environmental conditions and set up control committees with a notable power of veto over the utilization of particularly dangerous and harmful machinery. This centralized activity seeks to strengthen areas of participation and negotiation at a local level. The attempt to develop such activity takes place exclusively by means of procedures, with no specific reference to contents. In contrast to other European unions, the unions of these two countries do not recognize the validity of contents such as the reductions of working hours, determined by centrally negotiated regulations. The Scandinavian unions are not convinced that the development of information technology will lead to negative consequences with respect to employment. In their opinion, levels of employment are, in the final analysis, determined by the way society is organized and by the capacity to distribute resources by means of political and institutional decisions, external to the individual company, regarding the management of the labor market—political decisions that the unions must know how to influence and manage.

However, the principal problem is still that of the efficacy of this procedural apparatus within the local context, and a question mark remains regarding the main results at a local level and how they have been achieved. A partial answer, though itself constituting a new ingredient in Scandinavian industrial relations, lies in what have been called local-level knowledge-development programs, carried out by the unions themselves by means of systems development projects. The first project of this type was the Iron and Metal project, conducted by the Norwegian unions in this sector in 1971–73 (Nygaard, 1979). The project, led by a group of experts set up at a national level, had the task of studying the development of information technology in certain companies and of discussing possible changes in these information systems. Such initiatives, with more or less similar characteristics, have since become widespread in Sweden. The main projects of this type in Sweden have been the Demos project (Democratic Planning and Control in Working Life), 1975–79; the PAAS project (Perspectives on Administrative Development), 1974–80; the UTOPIA project, 1981 (a project for technological training and development in the newspaper production industry). The most important results of this project have been the diffusion of knowledge of new technology and the establishing of possible alternative utilization, especially with regard to the instruments to be used and the job design.

The general impression, given a lack of detailed research into local industrial relations in Sweden, is that this development of decentralized activity is principally aimed at influencing employers and giving unions the opportunity of becoming equal partners in projects of organizational change already undertaken by the management on the basis of new philosophies regarding company management and control. Such philosophies are above all based upon a decentralization of company decision-making structures, a greater autonomy and a lesser rigidity of work, and more informal consultations with the workers.

In this way greater union participation and involvement in company changes have been brought about, without a particular expansion of bargaining in the real sense. Despite the unions’ having sought to strengthen negotiations, the local level is still constrained by nationally imposed limits regarding union action (in the event of nonagreement at a local level, recourse to strikes is impossible) and by the tradition of concentration, which leads, at a company level, to many informal negotiations over themes concerning wages and working conditions.

In West Germany the union response to technological innovation has been the demand to strengthen the rights of codetermination in controling the introduction of new technologies; negotiations over the reduction of working hours so as to prevent a further increase in unemployment; and an increase in company negotiations to protect workers from the negative effects on working conditions. A document by the Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund, dated 1984, gives a full idea of strategy and a detailed description of the main union objectives.

The most important problem for the unions is employment. They have asked the government to put into practice an unemployment program and have demanded (and obtained) in the metalworkers’ sector a reduction in working hours. The other two objectives given prominence by West German unions, however, are less precise, namely, the proposal to extend codetermination rights and the improvement in the quality of work (or work humanization).

In West Germany technology agreements can be divided into two types, a division that is linked with the twofold system of labor relations in that country.

The first type consists of paragraphs on new technology, being part of collective contracts between trade unions and employers’ organizations at national or regional levels (Tarifverträge). At the national level, only the printing industry has an agreement (the “RTS Tarifverträge”) in which the introduction of new technologies (in this case, computer-controlled typesetting and word processing) is the main content. This national agreement was concluded in 1978, after a long and (by German standards) harsh period of industrial action. Its main clauses contain an individual protection against dismissal and lowering of income, a demarcation schedule between journalists and printers, and a guarantee that qualified printers have the exclusive right to do the computerized typesetting work for eight years to come. Moreover, the agreement specifies rest periods (every hour), ergonomic standards, and eye tests for VDU operators. Although the IG Druck und Papier had to fall in with the employers on a number of issues, the union leadership considers this agreement an important step toward a greater say by the workers in the introduction and use of new technology.

The second type of technology agreement has been concluded at the company level, with company or plant management and works councils (Betriebsräte) as signatories. Legal clauses on codetermination at company level (the Betriebsverfassungsgesetz of 1972) opened the possibilities for this practice. By this act, the works council has been granted advisory and information rights in planning changes in plant layout and premises, technical installations, and the labor process. The works council represents all the employees in the company, and although its representation is not wholly union based in the workplace, it has the right of codetermination concerning (1) the introduction of technical installations designed to control the behavior and performance of employees; (2) the making of rules to prevent health and safety hazards; and (3) whether the composition of labor tasks and workplaces is obviously opposed to the state of the art of scientific knowledge concerning the humanization of labor. Many company agreements about the introduction of new technologies start with concerns about health hazards (clauses about VDU work) and management control of the employees (clauses about personnel information systems, PIS). The introduction of these PIS has been an especially vivid issue in West Germany since 1981, and an issue of great worry for several trade unions. The scope of these agreements remains an issue of public debate, as the employers’ organizations deny that the codetermination rights of the work councils extend to decisions concerning technical innovation and labor organization (Christis et al., 1984: 16).

Approximately 400 agreements on technological innovation have been discovered so far. What renders these agreements different from other national European cases is their being constituted mainly of contents rather than procedures. A large part of these contents concerns problems of an ergonomic type and working conditions at VDUs, or they relate to the application of working-hour reductions obtained in the national contracts, qualification guarantees, or job design.

The absence of specific procedures concerning the decision-making process related to technological and organizational changes may generally be explained by the fact that codetermination rights already exist. The limits of these rights, from the unions’ perspective, is that they are very vague with regard to technological innovation. This is the reason for the proposal made in 1977 by IG Metall, the metalworkers’ union, to try to overcome these limits by singling out forms of control related to technological innovation. The IG Metall proposal included a requirement on the part of employers to supply the unions with detailed information regarding technological innovation; the possibility of making joint studies of the feasibility of the new systems, the social effects of their introduction also being taken into consideration; the setting up of joint committees, with the specific task of technical consultation regarding the introduction of technological innovations; general guidelines regarding job security and pay, with the obligation on the employer to negotiate additional agreements at company level with respect to all aspects of working conditions affected by technological innovation. This last aspect is confirmation of a general tendency of unions in West Germany to seek a decentralization of negotiations and a formalization of the results. The IG Metall proposal has had only limited application, because of employer resistance and the limits of the workers’ representatives in the works council in extending codetermination rights.

6. Concluding Remarks

Technological innovation is one of the most important aspects of restructuring processes, since changes may well modify the composition of the labor market and workers’ attitudes about collective bargaining over the long run. This could foreshadow reductions in union membership, because of a growth in the number of the occupational groups in which the unions have little influence and a reduction of the groups that are highly unionized. However, this vision of the future of industrial relations and the possible effects on union organization is still premature. The figures for declines in union membership in Europe are worrying for the unions but not dramatic, and up to now there is little evidence that any decline in union activity is structural rather than the outcome of a reversal of more favorable economic and political trends.

What emerges from an analysis of negotiations on technical-organizational changes is that these industrial relations structures, though still maintaining a strong link with their traditions, are not static and are themselves subject to innovation. The unions particularly seek out new instruments and new levels in order to control and guide technological innovation as far as possible. These changes cannot be generalized as fundamental shifts in collective bargaining and industrial relations but indicate only the possible tendencies of union action in the 1980s, tendencies that maintain a substantial continuity with past traditions.

As may be noted, changes in collective bargaining exist that are common to all the countries under consideration. The foremost, certainly the most widespread, relates to the introduction or strengthening of means and procedures of discussion between the parties. As a result of the demand for, and application of, the disclosure of information, technological innovation becomes a matter for consultation between union and company. There is thus a decentralized activity, at a local level, in which the unions request a preventive check and information both on the technical and on the organizational characteristics of the investment and on the effects this will have on working conditions.

Generally, the formalization of procedural rights creates permanent relationships, and for this reason it is difficult to put into practice the traditionl concept that separates negotiations from participation (in which the anticipated result is not necessarily a union agreement). This method is partly in contrast to normative negotiation models (specifically utilized within the antagonistic and conflictual traditions of industrial relations), the contents of which are also subject to previously determined obligations and rules. Independently of the success or method with which this phase is carried out (and it often prolongs the negotiating process), it would seem that the new procedures and methods bring about an inductive, rather than deductive, approach.

A second aspect common to all such experiences is the diffusion of regulations concerning working conditions of an ergonomic type, particularly at video terminals. The ergonomic factors concerning hardware planning involve scientific knowledge, the possibility of access to information, legal rulings, and rights of control that are reasonably precise and universally applicable. But such a possibility does not exist with respect to job design itself. The latter requires knowledge and standards that are less precise and more discretionary. It is largely dependent on the success of implementation and on managerial, company, social, and industrial relations traditions.

In most of the countries examined the normative success in ergonomic bargaining, particularly with reference to video terminals, may be explained by the possibility it allows of establishing rules regarding the protection of working conditions, both at a national and a local level, prior to the development of implementation. However, in the case of job design, participation and process-control rights are much more effective, since it is not possible to determine beforehand the results of the process, the organizational contents and standards, and the choices that must be made during the implementation period.

The third common aspect is the interest in regulations regarding the objectives of the organizational model, or the principles that lie behind work distribution. Insistence on this theme is not, as union documents often claim, due to a rise in the quality of collective bargaining but rather to the nature of new technology itself, which not only radically changes the work processes in many cases but also modifies the boundaries that used to distinguish the various occupational groups. The possibility that new technology can bring about more integrated organization and modify the functional relationships between roles and areas of activity gives rise to a need for regulations on boundaries; these regulations often represent a confrontation between the various occupational groups with respect to the distribution of the costs and benefits of technical-organizational innovation itself.

This last aspect is not always grasped by the structure, procedures, and contents of bargaining. Competition between groups and the way in which it is resolved is probably identifiable only through an analysis of informal negotiations. The impression is that the sphere of informality has grown considerably, not only because of consultation but also because of problems concerning work allocation, and competition and conflict between occupational groups.

To sum up, the main bargaining innovations involve a broadening of procedures, organizational changes, and knowledge development as an activity necessary for the realization of the objectives for which the parties have signed the contract. All these aspects are interdependent and have the common characteristic that they refer to processes rather than to specific contents circumscribed by tradition. As in all processes, the handling of the context, more than the definition of a precise mandate, assumes strategic importance. Consequently, steering structures, more than forms of representation, may also become particularly important. Very often such structures, comprising both company representatives and unions, may be seen as participatory structures in company management in the real sense.

The handling of these processes alters the relationship between union representatives and workers. Whoever represents the workers cannot, as in the past, have a worker’s mandate rigidly defined beforehand, restricting union negotiators to carry out their task within highly circumscribed objectives and parameters understood precisely by everyone.

Such common phenomena, however, should be considered in the context of differing tendencies that owe their origins to the specificity of industrial relations traditions. In the first place, because of its nature, the control of technical-organizational innovations gives rise to local initiatives, but the results of such local initiatives with respect to industrial relations do not produce convergent effects in the context of differing national cases. Countries with previous procedural participation and control structures determined at a central level seek, by means of a reinforcement of procedures, greater liberty of action at a local level, thus enlarging negotiation rights. This tendency toward decentralization is a response to inadequacies in national negotiations. National rulings and the institutional power of the unions in these countries do not seem adequate in controling labor market dynamics and in allowing the regulation of working conditions and direct effects of technological innovation.

Countries in which there is no previous procedural structure at a national level seek to build one up at a local level, with a tendency toward central negotiations. There is no similarity between Great Britain and Italy with respect to the way in which this latter aspect takes place. Centralization in Great Britain takes place slowly and through voluntary channels, above all through the reduction of multiple unions; in Italy, which already possesses centralized collective bargaining, it takes place through institutional channels. In Italy it is a question of the state and the employers recognizing a framework covering rights and instruments of participation and control both at the company level and on the labor market. For the unions it is a question of moving from a centralization that has its origins in ideological-political collective action to one that is more institutional and better able to achieve control over labor market mobility, training, and participation structures. Italian unions maintain that only through institutional channels, not exclusively by means of company bargaining, can such control become generalized and consolidated for all workers.

The second aspect in which these countries differ relates to formal and informal traditions of control and the instruments by means of which unions handle conflicts between occupational groups and job rights at workplaces. In countries such as Great Britain, in which the control of change takes place above all through informal rights that are fragmented according to occupational groups, there occurs a new form of bargaining accompanied not only by a recognition of procedures but also by the formalization of contents, which was traditionally left to informal customs and practices. The distribution of costs and benefits, however, is left to competition among unions, and between unions and employers. The system adapts itself spontaneously to new conditions, with the development of white-collar unions and changes in the representational logic of craft unions. How far this tendency will prevail over tradition, however, is a question that will be settled only in the long run. The development of white-collar unions with a tradition of more formalized and centralized company negotiations, however, points in this direction.

In countries in which work control is guaranteed by means of external institutional channels that regulate participation, the tendency is toward enlarging such rights. The extension of these rights involves the timing, introduction methods, and organizational effects of the new information technology, with the consequent strengthening of local bargaining. The available data, however, do not allow for the complete evaluation of the diffusion and efficacy of such rulings at a local level. In particular, it is unknown whether there has been a diffusion of company negotiations equal in intensity and efficacy to those other countries in which this activity has already been consolidated. In West Germany company bargaining has had evident results regarding the contents of working conditions (factors relating to ergonomic protection and working hours), although the demand for enlarged codetermination rights over technological changes has met with less success. In Scandinavia attention is for the most part concentrated on processes and on union control by means of participation instruments. In fact, as far as Scandinavia is concerned, the most significant new elements in local-level initiatives relate to projects of technical and organizational development managed directly by the unions. The task of these projects is to supply union representatives with possible alternatives and solutions to be proposed for adoption during discussions with employers on themes concerning the introduction of new technology. Rather than contributing to negotiations in the real sense, these projects have for now helped to reinforce local union autonomy in committees and in informal participation.

This difference of approach between West Germany and Scandinavia with respect to the extension of local-level bargaining rights is made explicit by the different way, in each country, the reduction of working hours has been interpreted as a union response to rationalization processes. The reduction of working hours is connected with the degree of institutional power of the union in each country. In West Germany the reduction of working hours represents an important normative gain, to be negotiated later at a local level; in Scandinavia the redistribution of occupational resources is entrusted to institutional instruments of national and local labor market management, under the joint control of the social parties.

Another important factor, besides the degree of institutional power of the union, that explains the difference between West Germany and the Scandinavian countries is union density. While centralization of the regulation of working conditions and participation is a common policy of the two systems of labor relations, the union density in this centralized context has an important effect on the degree of integration of different levels of worker representation. Where union density is high, as for example in the Scandinavian countries (the membership is 85 percent to 90 percent of the working population), the integration of workplace representation and central union structure is very high. Where union density is lower, as in Germany (the membership is about the 35 percent to 40 percent of the working population), the structure of the works council provides relatively fragile linkage between the company and establishment levels, and weak relationships between works councilors and the membership. This encourages the works council to adopt a parochial approach to many matters related to job security and the reduction of working hours, as well as plant rationalization.

In countries such as Italy, in which the control of changes in productive processes is undertaken by unions in ways that are both formalized and detailed, there is a partial inversion of this tendency. Rigid and specific rulings are maintained only with respect to certain aspects considered important in job protection, particularly the aspects that concern employment guarantees. But this rigidity is not maintained with respect to job mobility and flexibility in internal labor markets (workforce allocation, skills, systems of payment). The unions have developed new forms of guarantee: enlarging the utilization of the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni (Unemployment Benefit), trying to control training and skill requalification, determining procedures and joint structures for the control and reconversion of production at a local level. Either these latter activities have not been considered in the past, or recourse to them has been seen as negative. However, the absence of a national agreement and of a general recognition of procedures and instruments of control in rationalization processes, by employers and government, renders the behavior of the social parties uncertain and unstable. This instability may be seen in the continual oscillation in collective bargaining between participatory issues and issues of a more distributive type.

Notes

1. The theory of the primacy of politics has been fully dealt with by A. Pizzorno (1971). The reference to A. Gerschenkron (1965) relates to studies he carried out on industrial development in Europe and Italy. The political attitude of Italian unions, accompanied by a heterogeneity of models and union-party relationships, is also emphasised by Cella and Treu (1982). According to these authors, such attitudes were noticeably reduced during the seventies but tended to reemerge when the three confederations (CGIL, CISL, and UIL), “being weakened in the bargaining market, sought a voice and influence in the political market.”

2. This kind of centralized activity and structure has given rise to a model of industrial unionism founded upon the identity and stability of working conditions within the workplace. Today this system is in crisis, since stability and predictability are clearly being replaced by change and discontinuity. The new strategic needs and a different interpretive framework have been put before the unions and, in general, the various figures involved in industrial relations (Treu, 1984: 81–90).

3. According to observers, social conflict in factories has not been so much a problem of workers’ rights over working conditions as a problem of power, with demands tending toward the removal of social control instruments from the “hands of the bosses.” Union initiatives have followed up such spontaneous demands, codifying and regulating them and hence obtaining important agreements in all industries.

Within this frame, regarding the theme of work usage, the unions have substantially taken up a position with four types of demand:

1. egalitarian demands on the theme of qualifications, strongly challenging, in certain cases rejecting, the various forms of economic incentive (such contents having rendered the traditional forms of work force integration less practicable for the employer);

2. demands tending to make the work factor less flexible: from the control and limiting of overtime, to the reduction of working hours, the limiting of shifts, the control of work-rates, etc. (all of which have pushed companies towards seeking other forms of flexibility);

3. demands on all themes relating to the harmfulness of work environments, accompanied by the diffusion of a new policy with respect to health;

4. demands aimed at effecting changes in the structuring of jobs and in work organization, with interventions of control or contesting management solutions and, also, in certain large companies, of autonomous proposals.

Today it is difficult to say, without research material on the overall structure of Italian industry, which of these demands have had most effect in launching the more important organizational changes. However, the hypothesis that I continue to maintain as being most valid relates to the greater overall influence of the first two types of demand (Cella, 1978).

4. In this way the unions abandon what has been their traditional strategy, with respect to piecework, on three points: (1) the acceptance in principle of piecework and, at a more general level, the linking of pay to productivity as an objective necessity of work organization and as an advantage for the worker; (2) the accusation, directed at the company, of not using the piecework system correctly and tending to constantly increase productivity at the cost of the workers, by means of deadlines that are too strict, the institution of inadequate breaks and manpower, the continual cutting of rates, and so on; (3) the need for the recognition of the union’s function in bargaining over certain aspects of work organization, in order to eliminate these from the unilateral settlement of piecework by the employers.

5. Pay equality in Italy can only be partially compared to the system implemented by unions in other countries, such as Sweden. Although in Italy the union’s pay policy has, in this case, favored the lower pay levels by means of equal increases for everyone, in Sweden the equal-pay policy is more articulated and, at the same time, more generalized. In fact, in Sweden the egalitarian policy foresees a reduction in pay differences between territorial areas, adjusting and unifying the various parameters of the cost of living; pay in the weakest sectors of industry has been increased; pay equality between men and women has been achieved by means of recourse, in the last two cases, to annual percentage increases that are higher for ordinary workers.

6. The different cycles of industrialization in various countries are calculated on the basis of the highest employment levels achieved in the industrial sector. For Italy this indicator was established in 1970, for France in 1965, for West Germany and the United Kingdom in 1955, and for the U.S.A. in 1950. The number of computers in Italian industry rose from 34,000 in 1974 to 101,000 in 1982. Throughout the 1970s the utilization of VDUs spread with extreme rapidity, and in 1982 there were an estimated 900 robots in use (Colombo and Lanzavecchia, 1983).

7. What has been lacking in the Italian case, unlike those of Sweden and West Germany, is a general agreement by the social parties, supported by public powers, on how to further economic development and the quality of working life on the societal scale. Nevertheless, the Italian case is today influenced by “rules of the game” at a company level, which have modified the classic sphere of bargaining in the direction of some instances of joint regulations in certain companies and large industrial groups (Butera, 1984; Della Rocca, 1982).

8. With respect to the financing of such training activities, recourse to public structures is common practice, particularly in the regional boards, which have specific funds for job training, or the European Social Fund, which is the European Economic Community (EEC) organ for the financing of personnel retraining processes in the event of technological innovation.

9. The study, Industrial Relations in Information Society (Berta, 1986) was conducted and financed by the Fondazione Olivetti. It is a descriptive work, dealing with national cases, and is by various authors: Robin Williams analyzes the case of Great Britain; Herbert Kubicek, that of West Germany; Bengt Abrahamsson, that of Sweden and Norway; François Sellier, that of France; and Giuseppe Della Rocca, that of Italy.

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