Union democracy revisited: Decision-making procedures in the Italian labour movement

This article critically discusses a time-honoured thesis in the social scie nce literature, that membership control over union policy may be undesirabl e due to its potentially adverse effects on third parties and/ or society a s a whole. Based on extensive held research in Italy, the article first ana lyses the issue in general terms and then illustrates empirically two scena rios in which the presence of democratic decision-making procedures (that i s, procedures which both involve the rank and file workers and give them ul timate decision-making power) is not only compatible but even conducive to 'responsible' union behaviour while their absence leads to opposite outcome s. The two empirical illustrations examine the trajectory of centralized ba rgaining in Italy between the 1980s and 1990s and the tradeoffs facing the employees of two matched-paired factories in the Mezzogiorno, respectively.