Industrial Relations

The course provides the students with the basic knowledge and analytical tools to understand the nature and functioning of industrial relations systems. Particular attention is devoted to analyse the collective representation of workers and employers, collective bargaining, participatory practices and social concertation, with a view to contribute to the acquisition of the specific competences, which are essential to work for economic interest organisations, to administer and develop human resources within profit and non-profit organisatons as well as to design, implement and manage labour market and employment policies.

At the end of the course, students will understand and will be able to present the basic features of interest organisations - trade unions and employer associations - their organisational dilemmas (whom represent and how) and strategic options (which interests may be pursued and their implications). Students will be able to distinguish between the various collective bargaining levels and analyse the bargaining structure to assess the degree of centralisation/decentralisation and the presence of forms of coordination. Students will know the different types of state intervention in the field of industrial relations. He or she will be able to present the general trends in the transformation of industrial relations in the latest decades in Italy and in the main European countries.