Corporate Restructuring and Employment Protection: Towards a New Territorial Social Dialogue?

Abstract

The aim of this study is to discuss the involvement of the social partners at territorial level in the event of business restructuring processes. In the first part, the phenomenon is framed, its relevance is explained, and the issue of the anticipation and management of change is analysed, with specific reference to EU interventions. In the second part, the role of the social dialogue is linked to the ongoing decentralisation trend of collective bargaining, in order to show that there is a significant interdependence between the level of collective bargaining and the new relevance that the territory has gained during the last twenty some years. Reference is then made to a number of organisational patterns that firms have developed, going from the Italian industrial districts to the French pôles de compétitivité, as they represent a model of successful – formal or informal – relations of mutual trust and confidence at local level among many different social, economic and political subjects. They serve as a ground for suggesting the establishment of an enlarged, multi-actor, social dialogue on the territory, which could turn out to be very useful in anticipating and managing business restructuring. Finally, examples from a selection of case studies – prepared by the partners of the ESF funded AgirE research project – are taken as a background for testing the actual feasibility of such a proposal, highlighting the main features of those which could provide “best practices” for future reference, when trying to elaborate adequate responses to corporate restructuring.