Union struggles for working environment control in Italy from the postwar period to the 1970s

In the 1970s Italy experienced very intense bargaining activity concerning working environment and conditions, involving thousands of workers. Such an activity contributed to abating industrial hazards and provided workers wi th the opportunity to actively participate in the labor organization restru cturing. The paper proposes a synthetic history of unions' action and initi atives carried out in that period, as well as the health hazard control mod el developed, which was based on the active role of workers in understandin g and preventing occupational risks. The solution of health hazard problems focused on the participation of a "nondelegating homogenous workers' group '' The model enjoyed wide dissemination and had a very important impact on both social legislation and the sanitary system reform. Until 1974 labor co ntracts significantly enhanced the workers' rights of action and control. B ut the international economic crisis and the industrial structural adjustme nts brought trade unions to abandon the struggle. The key concepts of those experiences - recovery of subjective experience, enhancement of workers' k nowledge, the "nondelegation" and "consensual validation" principles - coul d still prove useful in coping with new forms of occupational problems.