ABSTRACT
Historically, the Italian labour movement has been characterised by late development, and by its strongly political and mainly class-based nature. Today’s three largest trade unions were created in the postwar (and post-Fascism) period, along mainly political lines: left-wing (mostly communist) CGIL; moderate (mostly Christian-democrat) CISL; and social-democratic UIL (Table 6.1). Union density based on only CGIL-CISL-UIL is 35.4 per cent, but an estimated 5-7 per cent should be added to include autonomous trade unions, whose influence has been increasing since the 1980s. The union confederations are organised along both horizontal (regional) and vertical (industry federations) lines.
