Industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe

Overview & Synopsis

The purpose of this book is to identify changes in industrial relations in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with particular emphasis on the area of representative employee participation. The structure of the work was subordinated to the implementation of the above objective. Chapter 1 discusses the most important stages of the process of creating a European dimension of industrial relations and presents the main models of industrial relations existing in Europe. An analysis of selected components of labor relations in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) before and several years after accession to the EU was also carried out. Chapter 2 is devoted to the two main forms of representative employee participation in the CEE countries. The first part of this chapter presents the difficult process of "formation" of works councils in Central and Eastern Europe and the principles of operation of these institutions of employee participation. The next part of the chapter, based on the results of research conducted as part of the NCN project, presents the main sources of weakness of works councils in Polish enterprises. The last part of this chapter focuses on discussing employee representation in corporate governance bodies, both at the national and European level. Chapter 3 of the book analyzes the impact of the following three phenomena on industrial relations: globalization, the 2008 economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.