Democratic representation in times of economic crisis: the outlook of Italian trade unionism

Abstract

The workers’ referendum of October 2007 represents an important event of social participation in Italy. The aim of this paper is to discuss these recent union democracy tendencies in Italy. Even if this article highlights some empirical results of a survey analysis, it debates some real questions in Italian social representativeness. This study address to a sample of interviewers the question of what social factors affect the decision making processes and difficulties of maintaining democracy in organizations. Preliminary, analysis will determine general workers' condition in Italy; secondly, disaggregating data by gender, age, economic sector, this study will provide tools for analyzing general tendencies in union democracy and political culture.