Abstract

The paper examines the wage policy of fascism in the industrial sector from the onset of the Great Depression to Italy’s entry into World War II. The aim is to demonstrate that the stagnation of real wages in the 1930s is linked to the regime’s trade union policy, defined here as «material corporatism». By analysing the triangular relationship between the State, employer associations, and labour unions, three phases of wage policy are distinguished: the first marked by sacrifices imposed on the working classes during the crisis; the second characterized by a delaying strategy by the government and unions; and lastly the third, marked by the urgency of measures against inflation in the second half of the decade. Considering different rationales behind the fascist wage policy, a substantial continuity is identified in the freezing of wages at a subsistence level and the neutralization of less manageable pressures.