I would like to remind list membera about the following one-day
ESRC-sponsored workshop in
London which is open and free to all interested:
"Central Europe a Decade later: New Shopfloor Relations After Communism?"
date: Saturday, December 2nd, 10.30 -17.30 h
location: London School of Economics, Connaught House, 7th floor (Industrial
Relations Dept.), room H716
invited speakers: Prof Wieslawa Kozek (University of Warsaw), Dr Laszlo
Neumann (National Labour Centre, Budapest), Prof David Ost (Central European
University, Warsaw), Dr Andras Toth (Institute for Political Sciences,
Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
discussants: Prof Simon Clarke (University of Warwick), Prof Richard Hyman
(LSE)
chair: Dr Carola Frege (LSE)
The intention is to bring together scholars from Britain and Central Europe
to discuss the transformation taking place at workplace level in
postcommunist societies since 1989.
The workshop is aimed at figuring out the current practices at shopfloor
level, thus how workers, unions and managers actually behave and what are
their industrial relations strategies. The core question is whether a "new
industrial relations system" is emerging in the new millenium which is
neither a continuation of the former communist system nor a western
European-style institutionalized system, the one legislators and
policy-makers had in mind at the beginning of the transformation.
Rather than providing yet another account of the well-known signs of labour
weakness in Eastern Europe, this workshop wants to go a step further and
explore what kind of industrial relations are being practiced in reality. In
other words, rather than asking what is not happening and which institutions
and regulations do not function, we would like to learn more about what
these are replaced with instead.
For example, if local unions are not really bargaining at workplace
level who decides the pay and on what grounds? How do managers relate to
workers in non-unionized plants? Are direct communication tools, elaborate
HRM techniques, joint management-worker committees established? Do unions
have innovative strategies to gain access in the greenfield sites and
service sectors or do they preoccupy themselves with stabilizing their role
in the public sector and in the large private firms? What forms of workplace
unionism is being established and what is the future for unions in these
societies?
The focus will be on Hungary and Poland as both are among the most
successful transitional economies and both have established different formal
IR systems ("neoliberal" vs. "social democratic").
for more information on this workshop please contact Carola Frege
([log in to unmask])
This is the last workshop of the ESRC seminar series "Restructuring
Employment and Work in East Central Europe" (for more information please
check our website:
www.geog.sussex.ac.uk/research/changing_europe/restructuring.html)
Adam Swain
School of Geography
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham NG7 2RD.
U.K.
Tel: +44 (0)115 951 5730
Fax: +44 (0)115 951 5249
Email: [log in to unmask]
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