Il sindacato nella crisi, le crisi nel sindacato

The article analyses trade unions and crisis in 1970s Italy, interpreting “crisis” as both an economic context and a discursive, performative device that shaped the labour movement. It distinguishes three interconnected levels: an “external” crisis linked to international recession and counter-crisis policies; an “internal” crisis affecting organisational structures, participatory practices, and the expansion of union apparatuses; and a “crisis from below” concerning relations between trade unions and rank-and-file members. The latter is examined through researches on workers’ subjectivities using oral history, autobiography, everyday-life ethnography, and feminist consciousness-raising. These sources contribute to a social and cultural interpretation of Italian trade unionism attentive to scale, internal stratifications, linguistic registers, lived experiences, symbolic conflicts, and forms of representation.