Lucio Baccaro

The authors study strategic and organizational change in the International Labour Organization (ILO) over the last twenty years. They focus specifically on the ILO’s efforts to incorporate certain elements of the “new governance” model into its policies and organizational practices, which include the shift from standards expressed as detailed legal norms to “soft law”; the active involvement of civil society organizations other than trade unions and employer associations in regulatory activities; and the introduction of quantitative indicators of compliance with labor standards. They argue that the efforts of the ILO leadership have been waylaid by the organization’s corporatist structure, which gives employer associations and trade unions veto power over policy developments at a time in which these actors are increasingly unable to agree on concrete policy measures. Finally, the authors ask whether this corporatist structure accurately reflects the ILO’s self-defined mission: provi...

... a common framework developed by a collaborative research team, The Brave New World of European ... Silvia, Associate Professor, the School of International Studies, American University ... Rianne Mahon has benefited from the assistance of Ann Britt Hellmark, Jennifer King, Rob ...

ABSTRACT Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization.

The International Institute for Labour Studies was established in 1960 as an autonomous facility of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Its mandate is to promote policy research and public discussion on emerging issues of concern to the ILO and its constituents — ...

Prior versions of this paper were presented at seminars at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), the University of Geneva, the 2004 SASE Conference (Washington, DC), the Max-Planck Institute for Social Research (Cologne, Germany), and the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. Many thanks to participants in these events, as well as Daria Cibrario, Joshua Cohen, Lydia Fraile, and

This article discusses the 'associational democratic' model of relationship between state and civil society organizations, which recommends devolution of as many regulatory functions as possible to local groups and associations with detailed knowledge of problems and possible solutions, extensive monitoring capacities and the potential to deliberate about generalizable as opposed to purely sectional interests. The goal is to introduce greater

... Sabrina Colombo is Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology at the University of Milano, where she teaches Methodology of Social Research. ... Her recent contributions to books include Jean Blondel, Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Darina Malova et al., Governing New European ...

Trade unions and the crisis: a lost opportunity? Hyman, Richard and Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca (2010) Trade unions and the crisis: a lost opportunity? Socio-economic review, 8 (2). pp. 364-372. ISSN 1475-1461. Full text not available from this repository. ...

ABSTRACT Purpose – Ascertaining the extent to which the generalized decline in union density, as well as the erosion in centralized bargaining structures and developments in other labor institutions, have contributed to rising within-country inequality.Methodology – Econometric analysis of a newly developed dataset combining information on industrial relations and labor law, various dimensions of globalization, and controls for demand and supply of skilled labor for 51 Advanced, Central and Eastern European, Latin American, and Asian countries from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, followed by an analysis of 16 advanced countries over a longer time frame (from the late 1970s to the early 2000s).Findings – In contrast to previous research, which finds labor institutions to be important determinants of more egalitarian wage or income distributions, the chapter finds that trade unionism and collective bargaining are no longer significantly associated with within-country inequality, except in the Central and Eastern European countries. These findings are interpreted as the result of trade unionism operating under more stringent structural constraints than in the past, partly as a result of globalization trends. In addition, despite much talk about welfare state crisis, welfare states, historically the result of labor's power and mobilization capacity, still play an important redistributive role, at least in advanced countries.Practical implications – Union attempts at equalizing incomes by compressing market earnings seem ineffective and impractical in the current day and age. Unions should seek to increase the workers’ skill levels and promote an egalitarian transformation of the workplace. This type of “supply-side” egalitarianism is not a new strategy for unions, but is very much embedded in the unions’ DNA.

... Lucio Baccaro Département de Sociologie Université de Genève Uni Mail – Bureau 4211 40 bd du Pont d'Arve CH-1211 Genève 4 Switzerland Lucio.Baccaro@unige.ch August 2010 ... countries (Avdagic 2010 ; Baccaro 2003 ; Baccaro and Lim 2007 ; Baccaro and Simoni 2008 ; ...

... in the case of janitors) or from the bottom (as in the case of drywallers ... The approach relies heavily on circulating information about company abuses and generating a moral backlash ... suggest that organizing is possible against all odds, but not that strategic reorientation is turning ...

ABSTRACT At the 21st SASE Conference in Paris, in July 2009, a group of political economy and industrial relations scholars discussed whether the current legitimation crisis of financial capitalism could be viewed as a turning point for labour internationally. Following are an introduction by the panel organizer, Lucio Baccaro, and revised versions of presentations by Robert Boyer, Colin Crouch, Marino Regini, Paul Marginson, Richard Hyman and Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, and Ruth Milkman.

Page 1. Politics & Society http://pas.sagepub.com/ 'Aggregative" and "Deliberative" Decision-Making Procedures: A Comparison of Two Southern Italian Factories LUCIO BACCARO Politics Society 2001 29: 243 DOI: 10.1177 ...

Page 1. POLITICS & SOCIETY LUCIO BACCARO The Construction of “Democratic” Corporatism in Italy LUCIO BACCARO Based on field research at both the national and local levels, this article reconstructs the emergence of negotiated policy making in Italy in the 1990s. ...

This article argues that the Italian confederal unions' decision to engage in national policy-making paid off, even though it implied becoming co-responsible for tough choices, such as wage restraint and pension reform. This engagement was linked to a combination of three factors: the opening up of new opportunities in the political sphere, unity of action among the three major confederations,

... PAPERS Union Democracy Revisited: Decision-Making Procedures in the Italian Labour Movement Lucio Baccara International Institute tor Labour Studies This article critically discusses a time-honoured thesis in the social science literature, that membership control over union ...

... Sabrina Colombo is Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology at the University of Milano, where she teaches Methodology of Social Research. ... Her recent contributions to books include Jean Blondel, Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Darina Malova et al., Governing New European ...