Between welfare and bargaining: union heterogeneity in Europe’s Far East

Institutional theory has only recently begun to extend beyond the developed, relatively stable societies of Western Europe and the USA; recognition of heterogeneity in union functions is likely to constitute a prerequisite for its further extension within post-socialist Europe. This chapter identifies the sources and nature of union functional diversity in Moldova. We illustrate that this type of internal diversity, in part a product of external influences and incoherent reform, is greater than in much of the rest of Europe where unions’ key industrial function is collective bargaining.Trade union functions, as we illustrate, may not be assumed or derived from Central and East European countries (CEE)(for an institutionalist analysis of CEE countries see Noelke and Vliegenhart, 2009), still less from West European or American models.