Abstract

The essay tries to describe, first of all, the political choices on which the "White Paper on labour market in Italy" has based the social dialogue, i.e. the new consultation procedure between the State and the social partners that substitutes the method of s.c. "concertation", practised in Italy until the end of the '90s. Than the paper explains the differences between these two social practices - emerging in the new Act n. 276/ 2003 - related particularly to the relationship between law and collective bargaining. It so emphasizes the limitations of the role of collective bargaining.