Trade union renewal and social dialogue in post-communist societies: The Baltic states

Abstract

This project continues a key theme of Charles Woolfson’s European Commission Marie Curie Chair Excellence Award (2004-2007) in the Baltic states – social dialogue and trade union renewal in the post-communist states. The Baltic states are among the most open new market economies and their transformation from Soviet republics to new European Union member states reveals many of the problems of European integration, not least the development of employee representational rights in the workplaces. This project comparatively examines the reasons for the very low levels of union membership and the rather weak structures of social dialogue which exist both nationally, and at workplaces in the Baltic countries. Its key findings so far are that the difficulties facing trade union renewal have as much to do with the pathway of “illusory corporatism” pursued since independence from the Soviet Union, as with the actual negative legacy of pro-regime trade unions in the previous era.

Keywords

Industrial relations, Labour standards/rights, Work, trade union renewal, social dialogue

Publications

E. Kallaste and C. Woolfson (2013) Negotiated responses to economic crisis in the Baltic states. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 19, (2): 253-266.

C. Woolfson, (2011) Baltic trade union responses to the global economic and financial crisis. International Union Rights, 18, 1, 4-5.

C. Woolfson and E. Kallaste, (2011) “Illusory Corporatisms in the Baltic States”, Warsaw Forum of Economic Sociology, Special issue on David Ost “illusory corporatism” 2, 1 (3), 51-72.

C. Woolfson, E. Kallaste and J. Berzins, (2011) Industrial relations and social dialogue in the Baltic states: crisis, conflict and compromise, in S. Contrepois, V. Delteil, P. Dieuaid and S. Jefferys (eds) Globalising Employment Relations: Multinational Corporations and Central and Eastern European transitions, London: Palgrave/Macmillan, pp. 179-