Oral Presentation by Matteo Antonini¹, Laura Galuppo², Silvio Ripamonti²
¹ Università cattolica del sacro cuore, Italy ² Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
TIME: Wednesday, 15 July, 10:30 – 12:00
Location: Room 3
Session: 11
Abstract
This ongoing research project investigates the relationship between the crisis of trade union representation in Italy and the transformation of the meanings attached to work, with regard to the experience of meaninglessness. While unions face difficulties engaging with external workers these latter increasingly experience their jobs as fragmented, individualized and stripped of collective as well as individual significance with an increasing experience of meaningless work. This transformations also reflects within Unions where professional identities and sense of purpose of officials are challenged by the difficulty of interpreting workers’ demands, especially those from the categories affected by job insecurity. Grounded in a critical and psychosociological frameworks, we conceptualize work as a socially constructed emotional experience. Drawing on theories of collusion and affective symbolization (Matte Blanco, 1975; Fornari, 1976; Carli & Paniccia, 1999, 2003), we explore the interplay between the experience of work and the crisis of unions’ representation. Data collection is currently in progress through individual interviews and focus groups with union representatives and strategically relevant categories of workers, such as “atypical,” “agency,” and self-employed workers. Using Emotional Text Analysis (AET), we are identifying affective symbolizations that define how participants experience work and union representation. Interviews are expected to shed light on the impact of the loss of work’s role in shaping collective identities, replaced by individualized logics of self-interest, mirrored in tensions within unions themselves. The research aims not only to produce analytical categories to interpret these transformations but also to collaboratively develop strategies with unions to renew their representative function in ways that support workers’ emerging demands for meaningful work.