The case of ISEL within the strategy of CISL

The history of ISEL, the research center affiliated to the Italian Confederation of Labor Trade Unions (CISL), is to be considered closely related to the intellectual and personal vicissitudes of EzioTarantelli, the Italian economist who first prompted the creation of a trade union study center. Since its foundation (1981), ISEL activities have led to various publishing initiatives and formulation of the econometric model of the labor market (MOMEL). We will discuss how ISEL was originally founded in order to provide a suitable basis to support the key choices of the trade unions. Nevertheless, behind the rapid decrease in ISEL activity and its subsequent dissolution, which occurred in the immediate aftermath of Tarantelli’s death, lay the aim of giving back the trade unionists a degree of freedom in political terms.