The Role of the State in Central and Eastern European Industrial Relations: The Case of Minimum Wages
Governments in Central and Eastern Europe are dominant players in the field of industrial relations, acting in a liberalization dilemma between the needs of further state regulation to compensate the shortcomings of autonomous self-regulation by social actors and the demands of liberalized markets in the enlarged EU. Compared with the different types of industrial relation systems in Western Europe, a transitional model with specific etatist features has emerged. This becomes particularly evident when analyzing the decision-making process in Tripartite Councils and its function in determining national minimum wages. The article underlines the recent trends of differentiation and convergence of such pay principles as well as urgent tasks of the state to regulate the unsolved problems of poverty, labor markets and labor standards.
Crisis and change in industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe
This article introduces the Special Issue on industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe since the financial and economic crisis. Already dependent economically on funding from the west and lacking the robust industrial relations institutions traditional in much of Western Europe, countries in the region were particularly vulnerable. However, there are important cross-national differences, and the strategies of key actors have significantly affected the outcomes.
Trade Union Activists, East and West: Comparisons in Multinational Companies
This text concerns the transformation of class consciousness. It shows that differences between trade union activists from the East and West are not inherited from the past but are socially constructed, and that Eastern trade unions are "no longer" like their Western counterparts, as opposed to "not yet" like them. The study concentrates mainly on Italy and Poland, with East and West referring to concepts and perceptions rather than as a geographical concern. It discovers whether the differences in trade union consciousness are due to the meaning members give a situation or the specificity of the local work settings.