The article deals with the relation between union action and the development of welfare, from the first forms of union health assistance down to the more recent changes that are affecting labour regulations. The first part reviews some of the main national experiences that accompanied the development of health assistance along with the first programmes for social protection on the cusp of the XIX and XX centuries. This means examining the expansionist period of Fordist welfare, concentrating on the forms of union involvement in the functioning of the national welfare states. The analysis continues, looking at the changes that marked the crisis of Fordist welfare and the reform processes connected with the new paradigm of active welfare. In particular, it considers the changes that concern union action in the new framework of activation processes, with reference to the practices and forms of involvement - Ghent system/bilateralism - that seem most responsive to the need to reinforce the active intervention of the unions in the labour market.only subscribers can see the full article

The current Great Recession is the cost of the global imbalances of the Great Moderation period, when monetary policies and regulations were very lax. In the future we will pay the cost of policies that allowed us to avoid a new Great Depression seventy years after the previous one. This article reflects on the effects of the crisis and on the priorities and constraints of future choices in economic policy in relation both to the systems of social protection and the need for additional resources. After the first oil crisis the industrialized world awoke from its twenty-year dream of a golden age of growth, and this awakening meant revising downwards expectations as to improvements in individual standards of living, but the challenge for economic policy now is to prevent any further decline.only subscribers can see the full article

Issue 4-08 of Rps is devoted to the fundamental, continuing and complex relations between the unions and welfare in a perspective that tries to go beyond the more immediate and traditional relation between unions and labour relations. only subscribers can see the full article

After some prefatory remarks on the recent change in the meaning of «reform», a term now also used by the free-trade right as a means of attacking social and labour protection, the author dwells on what he describes as the socio-anthropological component of social protection. It is thanks to this basis of resources and rights, gained over time, that the modern individual is formed as an effective member of a «society of fellow-men». Fundamentally for this reason, in the present trend towards a «society of individuals» there is greater need for social protection, not less. This in turn should be modified, linking new rights to what are now unignorable requirements of flexibility and mobility.only subscribers can see the full article

The following pages contain a series of structured interviews carried out in September and October 2008 and give an important picture of the current situation of the Italian unions. The interviewees are Susanna Camusso, Confederal Secretary Cgil, Dept of Productive Sector Sector Policies; Carla Cantone, General Secretary of Spi-Cgil; Franco Martini, General Secretary of Filcams-Cgil; Morena Piccinini, Confederal Secretary Cgil, Dept of Welfare and New Rights; Giorgio Santini, Confederal Secretary Cisl, Dept of Labour, Training and Development in Southern Italy; and Claudio Treves, co-ordinator of the Dept of Labour Policies in the Cgil. The interviews are organised in two parts: the first, common to all the interviews, consists of two general questions on the subject of representation and the efforts and real capacity of the unions to see and interpret the post-Fordist socio-economic changes in the perspective of building up a welfare system; the second has three different questions for each interviewee on more specific matters and union dynamics connected with bargaining and the new role of local bargaining, the identity of the unions and their specific role in European policies. only subscribers can see the full article

Spending on social protection constitutes a large part - between a fifth and a third - of total resources produced by advanced economies. The Social State is however a recent institution which mainly developed in the post war years. Today however many believe it to be in crisis. After a brief outline of the historical development of the Welfare State, this paper will go on to analyse the present extension and distribution of social spending in Italy and in the rest of the Eu. Lastly it will highlight future prospects and challenges in the light of the modified economic context with particular reference to the rise in integration between countries, to the slowdown in economic growth in Europe and the spreading of new technologies. Consolidated knowledge as well as clichés devoid of any empirical foundation will be illustrated. only subscribers can see the full article

The creation and running of a complex system of social protection has a marked effect on social relations in France. How has joint responsibility in these relations been established and developed? How can it be interpreted given that the State has a central role? The original vindication of social democracy has adapted to a new positioning of subordinate work in French society. There are powerful changes at work that are seeking to reconcile security and professional developments.only subscribers can see the full article

The paper gives a brief overview of safety net mechanisms in Eu countries (before enlargement), outlining eligibility conditions after social protection adjustments and reforms in the 90s and the current trends in the activation of minimum income beneficiaries. By analysing the policies of European states, there emerges a prevalent model which foresees the activation of the beneficiaries of safety net mechanisms with rigid access/exclusion conditions. The excessive use of restrictive, conditional tools risks the re-emergence of the idea of «culpable» poverty, hence undermining the achievements of social inclusion policies.only subscribers can see the full article