Unionisation in Italy

By ETUC Dossier

With a rate of unionisation hovering around 35%, Italy is above the European average.

The three national confederations, the General Italian Confederation of labour (CGIL), the Italian Confederation of Workers' Unions (CISL) and the Italian Labour Union (UIL) - all three of them members of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) - are very active in this context.

Faced with a constantly evolving society, a union has to adapt to changes. This is the common approach on unionising that the three Italian confederations have decided to adopt. Structural changes due to globalisation, and the growth of migration, have helped to change the context in which Italian trade unions operate.

Likewise, since the early 1990s, we have seen a major shift in Italian labour law: new types of contracts, essentially precarious one, have appeared. At the same time, Italy has shifted from being a land of emigration to a land of immigration. These factors have led the trade unions to set up new activities and to develop new structures to increase their members, while seeking to reach 'new' categories of people, such as precarious or non-typical workers and migrants.

(European Trade Union Confederation Newsletter no. 15 February 2007)