Political, general, or economic strikes? New types of strikes and workers’ contention in Italy (2008–2018)

The article provides an overview of workers’ collective actions in Italy between 2008 and 2018, which characterized a new wave of contention; the article focuses on the development of strike activities in this period. While the literature suggests an increase in general/political strikes and a decline of economic strikes, we argue that this distinction does not sufficiently account for the variety of strikes that has recently occurred. Our contribution aims to clarify the differences between three types of strikes: general political strike, general/large-scale economic strike, and local economic strike. The empirical analysis is based on a new data set of workers’ collective actions, including strikes, observed in Italy in the decade 2008–2018. The data set was built using protest event analysis (PEA). Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) reveals three types of strikes that differ along these dimensions: the actors promoting them, the workers’ occupations involved, the issues claimed, the scale of action, and the addressee of the actions. Conclusions compare the characteristics of workers’ contentious actions between 2008 and 2018 with the old cycle of protests observable in the 1960s and 1970s, and suggest an integration of economic and political explanations to account for the new types of strikes.