What is the cause of the recent revival in the Italian labor unions? In the past five decades, Italian labor unions have been like a Ping –Pong ball, bouncing from weak and divided to strong and united. Membership has also been increasing and decreasing as the unity and strength have been fluctuating. Over the past ten years, Italian unions have experienced a remarkable resurgence. After more than a decade of declining political power, membership loss, and significant inter- and intra-union conflicts, Italy"s three major union confederations (CGIL-CISL-UIL) have reemerged as key actors in Italy"s political economy. I am arguing that changes in Italy"s political environment, specifically the demise of the old party system, and various changes by the Italian unions themselves (changes in the organizational structure) brought about the reversal of fortune; it promises to be much more stable than previous efforts at recasting Italian labor relations.

             Before I start discussing what is the reason for the resurgence of the labor unions in Italy, I want to discuss the efforts that have been made in the past. Throughout the 1970"s and 1980"s, many attempts aimed at remaking Italian labor relations in the image of other, supposedly more "Mature" national systems were promoted. In 1970, an attempt was made to reform Italian labor laws through the Statuto dei Diritti dei Lavoratori (a comprehensive labor law modeled on the American Wagner Act. In 1975, Confidustria (Italy"s major business association) and the three major labor confederations, (CGIL, CISL, &UIL) attempted to forge a Swedish-like basic agreement through wage indexation. In the late 1970"s, and again in 1983-1984, experiments with neo-corporatist "concertation" were performed. All of these were designed to recast Italian Industrial Relations in the image of other, more "mature" national systems, yet all of these initiatives failed.