ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on workers’ representation. Given its structural features, the low level of unionization in the retail industry is not surprising. The representation gap for retail workers is much wider in the US than in Italy, and anti-union strategies adopted by US employers are much more violent than those of Italian ones, but the type of difficulties unions face in the two contexts is the same. The chapter also underlines how the unionization of a workplace affects working conditions. The differences between unionized and non-unionized firms are much wider in the US than in Italy. In the latter, the core of rights defined by labor laws for all the workers is larger than in the former and national collective agreements provide additional protections. In Italy the difference between unionized and non-unionized companies concerns the enforcement of existing rules, while in the US it also concerns the very existence of them.
The chapter highlights the role of an active worker center for retail workers in New York (RAP), with its innovative attempts to reach and mobilize a transient workforce. The analysis stresses similarities and differences between what the center is doing and what Milan unions do for mass fashion retail workers.
