How Social Dialogue Can Attempt to Link Welfare and Competitiveness at the Company Level: Insights from three Metalworking Companies in Italy

The contribution deals with social dialogue practices at the company level addressing the implementation of occupational welfare measures linked to internal flexibility programmes in the attempt to strike a balance between two relatively autonomous and potentially diverging viewpoints, i.e. - the entrepreneurial standpoint, and thus the need for competitiveness, long-term economic growth, and revenue, and the points of view of people at work, reflecting their needs for an effective combination of the capability for work and the capability for life, for health, for the promotion of fundamental human rights, and of the human dignity. The manuscript offers an in-depth analysis of the adoption decisions of corporate welfare programs undertaken by company management and employee representatives in three large metalworking enterprises in Italy. The focus of the analysis is whether and how these programs are connected with changes in the way work is organized, as well as the logic with which they are oriented by the involved parties to the joint improvement of corporate competitiveness and levels of workers‘ wellbeing. Measures and practices implemented by the social partners are evaluated against the multidisciplinary methodological approach based on on the concept of “freedom of choice”, drawn from Amartya Sen’s capability approach, as well as a set of criteria, drawn from organisational analysis, to evaluate whether the internal flexibility measures implemented in each case promote the well-being of the workers concerned, while promoting the capability of the company to innovate products and processes, and to achieve smart and sustainable growth. The contribuition concludes with some implications concerning the changes in the logic of trade union and government action that are needed to fully exploit the potential of internal flexibility to promote both the health and well-being of the workers concerned and the company capability to innovate and pursue long-term economic growth.