Transnational company agreements signed in German-based MNCs
As a tool to introduce participatory experiences in the context of Italian industrial relations
Volker Telljohann, IRES Emilia-Romagna
In the post-war period the Italian industrial relations were characterised by a relative absence of participatory experiences. The modest diffusion of significant participation experiences are to be sought in the tradition of the industrial relations system that in the past was characterised by an elevated level of conflict and, as a consequence, by a particularly critical attitude towards the participation models practiced in other countries. Trade unions as well as employers have always preferred to regulate industrial relations through collective bargaining. Due to the voluntaristic tradition in Italian industrial relations and the employers’ and trade unions’ critical stance towards participation there is almost no institutionalisation of participation rights.
However, in recent years in Italy there has been a growing attention to participatory experiences in other countries and in particular to the German model of co-determination. On the one hand, this interest was very much linked to the role of co-determination practices in the context of the crisis. On the other hand, due to the growing foreign direct investments of German-based multinational companies in Italy concrete experiences of co-determination were developed in Italian affiliates of German MNCs.
Among the analysed cases the most significant cases regard the Italian enterprises belonging to the Volkswagen Group. In these cases a transnational company agreement signed at Volkswagen, the so-called Charter on Labour relations, provides for the implementation and application of a set of co-determination rights originally laid down in the German Works Constitution Act.
The paper will show how these co-determination rights were implemented in the context of the Italian industrial relations systems which is characterised by a low level of institutionalisation. It will be analysed which were the preconditions and the mechanisms provided for by the national industrial relations systems that were necessary for a successful implementation of the rights provided by the TCA.
On the basis of our analysis, it also seems to be important that future innovations in industrial relations aim to develop a hypothesis for integrating and coordinating the various forms of representative participation and direct involvement in order to overcome the traditional limitations of participative experiences. From a trade union point of view, the problem regards the fact that companies are increasingly aiming at forms of direct employee involvement thereby avoiding coordination between the different forms of participation. There is thus the need to innovate the traditional system of interest representation by developing new hypotheses capable of clarifying the relationship between direct involvement and representative participation. If there is a lack of clarity as regards the respective competencies and the interconnections between the different levels, the experiences of participation risk failure.
Finally, it will also be shown that a potential obstacle is linked to the cultural differences. In fact, the Charter on Labour Relations envisaging an exchange between co-determination rights and shared responsibility initially entailed mistrust among Italian employee representatives and trade unions. A specific relationship between social partnership and conflict had to be developed guaranteeing in this way the compatibility with national industrial relations practices.
It can be argued that TCAs can represent an added value in specific fields of industrial relations. The significant impact of the Labor Relations Charter is not a surprising result as Italian industrial relations have always been characterised by the absence of institutionalised participation rights. Thus, it is comprehensible that the participation rights go beyond the national standards in the field of information and consultation. All in all, the Labor Relations Charter as well as other TCAs contributed to strengthening the position of company-level bodies of interest representation and trade union organisations as the latter are entitled through the signature of central management to negotiate and deal with an enlarged range of topics at local level.
The implementation of the TCAs is also an important example of a multilevel approach of interest representation characterised by a close coordination of various actors including World Works Council, European Works Council, the Italian company-level bodies of interest representation (RSU), territorial trade union organisations and even the RSUs of supply companies.
It can be concluded that the introduction of co-determination rights was not the result of the export of the German model, but rather the outcome of a sustainable strategy of disseminating and integrating basic principles of co-determination in the context of Italian industrial relations.
