Decentralised Social Pacts, Trade unions and collective bargaining (how Labour Law is changing). WP C.S.D.L.E. "Massimo D'Antona" N. 2/2002

{From the Introduction]. The focus of this essay is the variegated phenomenon of social pacts, a term currently used to refer to a range of widely different practices involving different places (the firm, the territory, the state) but that derive from the same inspiration or strategy which, for lack of a more evocative term, can be defined as partnership. The spread of practices based on the concept of partnership is such that in the meta-language of European Community institutions the term is gradually replacing what was once referred to by the glorious expression "social dialogue." The analysis that follows will deliberately gloss over agreements at a macro level, that is the national-level social pacts (social pacts in the real sense according to the terminology of the European Foundation) that spread throughout Europe in the 1990s (above all in Italy, Spain, Greece, Finland, Holland, Portugal, and Ireland) and towards the end of the second millenium, even proposed, albeit on as yet weak grounds, in a refractory country like the UK. The focus of the paper will be on the meso and micro levels (regional or local as far as terrritory is concerned, sector or plant levels as regards the traditional workplace)