IL CONTRATTO AZIENDALE IN TEMPI DI CRISI. Esperienze euro-mediterranee a confronto

Over the past ten years company agreements have increased their importance especially in Southern European systems of industrial relations (Italy, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain) in times of economic and financial crisis: in fact, company agreements may waive both law and national agreements, weakening the classic paradigm of inderogability.In this process a pivotal role is played by EU and international institutions through hard and soft law tools (New European Economic Governance), on the basis that proximity bargaining may improve growth and competitiveness.The volume analyses the role of company agreements within the single Euro-Mediterranean domestic experiences by considering legislative reforms, jurisprudence and bargaining praxis under a triple perspective: relationships among company and national agreements; among company agreements and law; and workers’ representation at company level.Moreover, the work describes the US system of industrial relations, to demonstrate that the European decentralisation brings to an “Americanisation” of the Southern-European model as a whole: despite the structural divergences there is a functional convergence towards a system where the regulation of the contract of employment is attributed by the law to proximity bargaining. In the final chapter, in the light of the categories of decentralisation, Europeanisation and Americanisation, the author offers a theoretical and systematic description of the systems before individually analysed.