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.
From transition crisis to the global crisis: Twenty years of capitalism and labour in the Central and Eastern EU new member states
This paper analyses the developments in wages, employment and income distribution in the Central and Eastern European new member states twenty years after transition to capitalism, divided into three periods: 1) the transition crisis; 2) post-transition growth; and 3) the crisis episode of 2008-9. Total employment has at best stagnated or slightly decreased. Modest wage increases have fallen behind productivity increases. Furthermore, the global crisis has led to employment losses in all countries, and real wages have already started to decrease in several countries.
To What Extent Can English-as-a-Second Language Learners Read Economic News Texts?
In decision making in the economic field, an especially important requirement is to rapidly understand news to absorb ever-changing economic situations. Given that most economic news is written in English, the ability to read such information without waiting for a translation is particularly valuable in economics in contrast to other fields. In consideration of this issue, this research investigated the extent to which non-native English speakers are able to read economic news to make decisions accordingly – an issue that has been rarely addressed in previous studies. Using an existing standard dataset as training data, we created a classifier that automatically evaluates the readability of text with high accuracy for English learners. Our assessment of the readability of an economic news corpus revealed that most news texts can be read by intermediate English learners. We also found that in some cases, readability varies considerably depending on the knowledge of certain words specific to the economic field.