The Referendum on Article 18 and Labor Market Flexibility

Abstract

After months of intense debate, the referendum on Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute was held on 15–16 June 2003. The aim of the referendum was to extend to all workers, independent of the size of the firm, so-called real protection, that is, the right to reinstatement in case of unjustified dismissal.1 The result was clear once the polls were closed and even before the votes were counted. Only 25.7 percent of eligible voters took part, a significant amount less than the required 50 percent quorum. It meant that the 10 million votes (87.4 percent of voters) in favor of extending Article 18 had no legislative impact.2 The fact that the vote was not validated could lead to the conclusion that the event was insignificant. However, it provides an opportunity to look at the dynamics between trade unions and politics in recent years, especially with respect to the debates over labor market flexibility and legislative proposals of the center-right government. Moreover, the referendum contributed both to the accentuation of divisions between the major trade union confederations (CGIL, CISL, and UIL) during the campaign and then to their attenuation following the vote. Finally, the referendum, perhaps, brought to a conclusion a two-year struggle for the representation of labor. It strengthened the traditional ruling group of the Ulivo and Communist Refoundation while weakening that of Sergio Cofferati, the spiritual leader of the wider left extending from the Margherita to the No Global and girotondi movements.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.