A Missed Transition? Comparing Two Trade Union Disputes in Italy’s Automotive Industry

Abstract:

The transition towards low-carbon production is reshaping employment relations across advanced capitalist economies. Among the most hard-to-abate sectors, the automotive industry is particularly emblematic of these transformations, where the shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is generating profound restructuring pressures throughout global production networks. While decarbonisation policies are widely recognised as necessary to address climate change, they also raise critical questions about the social consequences of industrial transformation and the role of labour in shaping these processes.
In recent years, scholars in industrial relations have increasingly turned to Power Resource Theory (PRT) to analyse labour agency under conditions of economic restructuring. Originally developed to explain the emergence of the welfare state as a way of regulating employer power across capitalist economies, the theory assumes a structural advantage for employers stemming from their control over the means of production, while suggesting that this position can be partially offset by workers’ power resources. Since Wright (2000), however, much of the literature has focused primarily on the labour side, conceptualizing workers’ power resources through different typologies.
Given this focus, recent contributions have called for a return to the original perspective in which the theory was developed, arguing that the analytical potential of PRT depends on moving beyond a view of power resources simply as attributes possessed by actors. Recent work has therefore emphasized the need to pay greater attention to the relational configuration of power resources and to the ways in which labour and employer resources interact in shaping industrial relations outcomes.
These issues become particularly salient in the context of green industrial restructuring. Decisions concerning technological change, investment and production reorganisation are typically controlled by firms and financial actors, potentially limiting workers’ capacity to influence the direction of industrial transformation. While a growing literature has explored labour-environment tensions and the politics of the “just transition”, empirical analyses of how labour power operates within concrete restructuring conflicts linked to decarbonisation remain relatively limited.
Thus, the present research contributes to this debate by examining how the relational configuration of labour and employer power resources shapes the outcomes of industrial conflicts associated with green transformation processes. More specifically, the paper addresses the following research question: under which conditions can workers influence the outcomes of industrial crises triggered by decarbonisation processes?
The study adopts a comparative qualitative case study design, analysing two prominent trade union disputes in Italian plants operated by multinational automotive suppliers: GKN Driveline (Campi Bisenzio) and Marelli (Crevalcore).
The two conflicts share several structural characteristics, but generated different outcomes in terms of employment protection and restructuring management, making them suitable for comparative analysis.
The research draws on trade union documents, media reports, academic literature and interviews with various actors involved in the disputes.
In both disputes, workers displayed significant mobilisation potential based on their associational, coalitional and ideational resources. At GKN, the announcement of the plant closure triggered a rapid factory occupation and sustained mobilisation that generated wide social and political support. Workers also developed strong coalitional and discursive resources by framing their struggle as part of a broader project of socially just ecological transition. However, these resources proved insufficient to influence the firm’s strategic trajectory. The employer retained decisive structural power through its control over investment decisions and production strategies, and workers were unable to alter the restructuring strategy despite the visibility and legitimacy of their mobilisation.
The Marelli dispute illustrates a different relational configuration of power. While workers also relied on strong associational, coalitional and ideational resources, they obtained institutional support and were able to intersect their strategies with vulnerabilities in the firm’s production network, disrupting production processes and increasing their structural leverage vis-à-vis the employer. In this case, the interaction between labour mobilisation and employer vulnerability created a more favourable power configuration, enabling unions to secure stronger guarantees in terms of employment protection and social measures. Nevertheless, even under these conditions, workers had limited capacity to influence the firm’s broader strategic decisions concerning technological change and investment.
Taken together, the comparison suggests that labour influence in contexts of green industrial restructuring depends on the alignment between workers’ power resources and firms’ structural vulnerabilities in shaping the redistribution of costs and benefits. While mobilisation can affect the distributive consequences of restructuring, it does not by itself alter firms’ strategic authority over investment and technological choices. Without institutionalized mechanisms of participation, workers’ power remains largely confined to redistributive outcomes. Legally recognized structures of participation are therefore necessary to extend labour influence to decision-making processes concerning business strategies and organizational change.
Thus, the article makes three main contributions to the literature.
First, it responds to calls to extend the application of Power Resource Theory to labour conflicts linked to the green transition. By examining disputes emerging from decarbonisation-related restructuring, the paper demonstrates the continued relevance of power resource analysis for understanding labour agency in contemporary socio-ecological transformations.
Second, the article contributes to recent efforts to develop a relational interpretation of PRT. Existing literature has questioned the explanatory power of approaches focused mainly on labour resources, particularly in cases of large-scale mobilization that nonetheless fail. This research shows that even strong combinations of resources may not be sufficient and that outcomes depend on the broader configuration of power relations between workers and firms. By comparing two disputes unfolding in similar structural contexts but characterised by different relational dynamics, the analysis highlights how the interaction between labour and employer resources shapes workers’ capacity to influence restructuring outcomes.
Third, the study contributes to debates on the politics of the just transition by highlighting both the agency and the structural limits of labour actors in shaping green industrial restructuring. While workers can mobilise significant associational, coalitional and discursive resources, their capacity to influence the strategic direction of technological and industrial change remains constrained by the structural power of firms and the governance of investment decisions. These findings suggest that achieving a socially just green transition requires institutional arrangements capable of expanding workers’ influence over industrial restructuring processes and investment decisions.