The collective bargaining of flexicurity: A case for sector‐level analysis? The Italian chemical and metalworking sectors compared

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12255
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• Author: Manuela Galetto,Valentina Paolucci
• Date: 01 April 2020

REVIEW ARTICLE

The collective bargaining of flexicurity: A case for

sector-level analysis? The Italian chemical and

metalworking sectors compared

Valentina Paolucci

1

| Manuela Galetto

2

1

School of Business, University College

Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

2

Warwick Business School, University of

Warwick, Coventry, UK

Correspondence

Manuela Galetto, Warwick Business School,

University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

Email: manuela.galetto@wbs.ac.uk

Abstract

Although employment relations in Europe have long been

seen as a factor of rigidity, limiting managerial discretion

and adaptability, in the last 30 years, they have witnessed a

trend towards decentralisation of collective bargaining and

negotiations increasingly centred on flexibility–security

trade-offs between employers and employees. Research on

the contribution of collective bargaining to the so-called

flexicurity has mostly focused on national-level institutional

arrangements. In this article, we contend that meso-level

differences need to feature more prominently in the debate.

Our comparison of two sectors in the same country

(chemicals and metalworking in Italy) shows that decentrali-

sation has divergent effects on flexicurity issues depending

in particular on differences in market structures and on

depth of bargaining. The interplay between these two

factors affects what we refer to as procedural security, which

we view as important in ensuring sustainable trade-offs

between flexibility and security.

KEYWORDS

collective bargaining, employment relations, flexicurity, joint

regulation

1|INTRODUCTION

Research into work and employment has increasingly explored the interplay between macrolevel dynamics and

organisational practices. For example, recent studies of national systems have sought to explore the extent to which

Received: 15 January 2019 Revised: 4 June 2019 Accepted: 15 July 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12255

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