Manufacturing and Services FDI Trajectories: Colonial Perceptions and Union Opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe

Steve Jefferys

Chapter 3 in Globalizing Employment Relations, 2011, pp 45-62 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract For many workers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the Russian domination of their political and economic systems was experienced as colonialism. It could be more or less paternalistic or more or less oppressive, or even both at the same time. It is not surprising, then, that the exchange of Russian control for ownership by a much wider range of foreign nationals conjures up the Polish energy sector trade unionist’s use of colonial imagery. A Hungarian hospitality sector worker told us that French managers ‘bring an organisational culture and an organisational structure, but they do not take into account local aptitudes, and the reality that certain institutions or infrastructures do not exist’ (Budapest hotel receptionist, May 11, 2006). Even 10 years after their sale to foreign companies, the high level of domination of the top posts in many subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies by exceptionally higher-paid expatriates who lack host-country language skills and often do not intend to learn the local language remains a source of frustration.1

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Trade Union; Employment Relation; Transnational Corporation; Outward Foreign Direct Investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-30681-3_4

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230306813_4

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