Union influence in post-socialist Europe

We examine enterprise level union influence in post-socialist countries. We hypothesise that ‘calculative’ HRM is more strongly associated with low levels of union influence than ‘collaborative’ HRM, using the UK as a benchmark. We find that calculative HRM is indeed more damaging to union influence than collaborative, although to a much lesser extent than in the UK. We find that union influence corresponds to enterprise union density and is most apparent when the business cycle is unfavourable. We explain our findings by reference to East European members’ continued attachment to unionism for non-bargaining reasons.

Discussion Paper has been submitted to The Integrated Land and Resource Registry (ILRR).