Workers' Co-operatives and Trade Unions: The Italian Experience

Abstract

The paper examines the influence of trade unions on workers' co-operatives in Italy both at a political level, and inside the co-operatives. Over the last ten years the unions have stimulated the conversion to co-operatives of many failed capitalist firms as a method of saving jobs. Rescue ventures are the main growth area among manufacturing co-operatives. They have created new problems for the co-operative movement but clear working relations have developed which divide conversion tasks according to the expertise of the unions and co-operative movement. Inside the Lega co-operatives the unions have failed to adapt their roles as worker representatives to suit the changing character of co-operatives.