Multinationals in the New EU Member States and the Revitalisation of Trade Unions

Guglielmo Meardi

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2007, vol. 15, issue 2, 177-193

Abstract: Fears of social dumping in the enlarged EU have raised the question of who can defend employees in the new member states. This article addresses the issue through case study research on US and German-based multinationals operating in the automotive sector in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia. The evidence shows how trade unions and industrial relations institutions affect investors in different ways country-by-country, with some unexpected effects on the implementation of flexible employment practices by the investors. Foreign-owned enterprises witness cases of union revitalisation, breaking the “path-dependency” of post-communist unions, in spite of frequent employer hostility. Bottom-up factors such as production changes and local labour market trends are frequently found behind revitalisation, although foreign factors such as home-country models or international union solidarity occasionally also play a role. Such revitalisation, however, being company-based, raises issues on the capacity of trade unions to combine core worker representation with the defence of workers in the society as a whole.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09651560701483261 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdebxx:v:15:y:2007:i:2:p:177-193

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cdeb20

DOI: 10.1080/09651560701483261

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe is currently edited by Andrew Kilmister

More articles in Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().