Marcelo Vieta, PhD

Italy's Worker Buyouts and the Legge Marcora (Marcora Law) Framework

This report focuses on Italy’s experiences with worker buyouts (WBOs), the phenomenon of employees of closing firms buying out their places of employment and converting them to worker co-ops. Italy's WBOs have been facilitated by Italy’s extensive cooperative, business, and labour legislation and enabling environment, spearheaded by its Legge Marcora (Marcora Law) policy and funding framework – a unique collaboration for business rescues and saving jobs between workers, the state, exiting owners, and the cooperative movement. With particular emphasis on the resurgence of WBOs since the latest period of economic crisis spawned by the Great Recession of 2007-2008, this report reviews and updates research we have been conducting at EURICSE by specifically exploring: the political economic conditions from out of which Italian WBOs emerge; Italian and European policies on business transfers; the legal and financial supports that facilitate WBOs in Italy; Italian WBOs’ economic sectors of activity, geographic spread, territorial concentration, and demographic dimensions; 10 illustrative case studies; and their organizational makeup and conversion processes.