Trade Union Strategies and Contingent Work: Italian and Greek Telecommunications in Comparative Perspective

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. The Politics of Work

Abstract

The paper considers the role of trade unions in shaping the working conditions of call-centre workers. Using a matched pair comparative case study, it examines the puzzle of divergent union responses to the growth of contingent labour by looking at two telecommunications sectors in Southern Europe. Although the trade unions in Italy pursued inclusive strategies embracing the call-centre workers and negotiating the restructuring of the whole sector, the unions in Greece followed a policy of exclusion leaving call-centre workers outside representation and negotiating their internal restructuring. It is argued that the differential evolution of unionism and intra-organizational politics help to explain this variation.

Author

• Andreas Kornelakis, University of Sussex