European Journal of Industrial Relations
Special Issue Call for Papers
Work and Organisation in the Age of Global Economic Crisis: Industrial
Relations in the Post-Socialist Societies of Europe
Editors: Anna Soulsby (Nottingham University Business School, UK), Graham
Hollinshead (Business School, University of Hertfordshire, UK), Thomas
Steger (University of Regensburg, Germany), Richard Hyman (London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK)
In this special issue, we invite research that situates study within a broad
social, economic and transitional context, making connections to the debates
in the wider social sciences (Beck 2012; Jackson, Kuruvilla and Frege,
2013). We are interested in comparative studies that examine growing
insecurities in the fields of work, organisation and employment (including
the effects of migration) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the context
of the international ‘crisis of capitalism’ (Hardy, 2014), and which
investigate the nature of localised responses to the spread of uncontrolled
market forces into the region. While comparative analysis across countries
in the CEE region may be instructive at the levels of the workplace,
establishment or industry, or through examining the inward investments of
MNCs, we are particularly interested in studies which depict the latest
phases of transition in CEE as being subject to contestation and negotiation
by pluralistic groupings within economy and society, and which bring to the
fore the significance of class, gender and ethnicity. We invite submissions
which capture the unevenness of transitional developments in CEE in the
post- financial crisis era through comparative analysis of changes in the
institutional arrangements impinging upon industrial relations across nation
states as well as procedural and substantive shifts. We also wish to explore
how the particularly hostile environment for trade unionism in CEE is
creating new avenues for renewal and reinvention, and whether the
resourcefulness and imagination exhibited by trade unionists in the region
offers real learning opportunities for the international labour movement.
Despite the aspirations of policy makers, it remains the case that the
constituent countries of the enlarged EU remain profoundly divided in
economic and social terms (Rubery, 2011), with the new member states of CEE
remaining locked into poorly financialised and lower technology systems in
comparison with their more advanced western counterparts (Barr, 2005; Hardy,
2014; Soulsby and Clark, 2007; Stark, 1992; Stenning, 2005) Therefore, in
the ‘age of austerity’, the leaders of the EU are struggling to maintain
internal political unity, consensus and cohesion (Hoffmann, Jacobi, Keller
and Weiss, 2003; Meardi, 2012; Woolfson, 2007). During the course of their
transition from state socialism to capitalism, the countries of CEE have
constituted prime subjects for the receipt of neo-liberal economic
prescriptions for ‘reform’, notably as asserted by the ‘Troika’ comprising
the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). Far from such economic orthodoxy becoming
discredited or reconsidered in the wake of the global financial turmoil of
the late 2000s, it has become evident that such liberal market economic
medicine has been dispensed to the CEE respondents with even greater
alacrity in the post-financial crisis era. Yet the socio-economic context of
countries in the region may be characterised by its vulnerability, as
deepened integration into international economic structures has been
accompanied by high levels of dependence on foreign investment and perilous
exposure to the ebbs and flows of international capital. The crisis in
neo-liberalism has therefore created disproportionate social and economic
detriment amongst the working populations of CEE, and is manifested by
malaises such as profound income disparity between rich and poor, high
levels of precariousness in employment, emigration, homelessness, and the
dismantling of already fragile systems for social welfare provision as well
as institutional arrangements for collective bargaining and social
partnership.
While the CEE nations undoubtedly share common institutional features as a
product of their transitional status, as well as experiencing a joint
downward trajectory in exposure to global economic forces, novel theoretical
departures are recognising ‘unevenness’ in the developmental paths of
individual states. Hardy (2014), for example, finds the notion of sporadic
‘social leaps’ instructive in shedding light on the realities of transition
in CEE, in preference to the much vaunted concept of the ‘transformation
process’. Similarly, Myant and Drahokoupil (2010) posit a ‘typology’ of
post-communist economies which combines indigenous political, economic and
institutional factors with levels of national integration into the global
economy in highlighting socio-economic distinctiveness between nations. Such
theoretical departures are welcome as they serve to query the efficacy of
‘designer’ blueprints for neo-liberal reform as incepted by powerful western
agencies at the outset of transition (Hardy, 2014; Myant and Drahokoupil,
2012). Instead, the ‘uneven’ perspective on transition in CEE opens the way
for envisaging the reality of social and economic development in terms of
negotiation and contestation by social agents, bringing to the fore issues
such as class, gender and ethnicity (Hardy 2014). Indeed a cursory empirical
perusal of the institutional state of play across the variety of CEE nations
in the post-crisis era would reveal that a diverse array of ‘architectures’
are in evidence, with variability, in particular, being evident in the
nature of collective bargaining structures, procedures for the delivery of
social welfare, as well as in the rapidly changing substance and procedure
of the employment relationship.
Wider societal turbulence poses particular challenges for the citizens of
CEE as they respond to the effects of the economic crisis and during the
course of their daily experience of work (O’Reilly, Lain, Sheehan, Smale and
Stuart, 2011). The working environment is increasingly characterised by
volatility, precariousness, risk and uncertainty. For many workers,
especially in the regions and local communities of the post-socialist
countries of Europe, work and employment are now regarded with a sense of
real insecurity and fear for the future (e.g. Bernhardt and Krause, 2014;
Croucher and Morrison, 2012). Trade unions in CEE, whose organisation and
structure has been in a state of flux over the period of transition, have
experienced dwindling membership, a diminution of consultation rights as
employers and governments have asserted policy ‘imperatives’ fuelled and
legitimised by the crisis, as well as the decentralisation of bargaining
structures and dilution of labour codes (Bernaciak, Gumbrell-McCormick and
Hyman, 2014).
In a climate of apprehension, the response of organised labour to draconian
actions of employers and governments has been understandably muted, yet
there have been some notable examples of resistance as manifested in overt
expressions of social unrest across the region. We would note in particular,
the protests of thousands of public sector workers in Romania in May 2010
against planned cuts to wages and pensions, as well as the mobilisation of
thousands by the three Lithuanian Confederations outside the Parliament
building in January 2009. Perhaps paradoxically, as Bernaciak et al. (2014)
suggest, despite the ravaging effects of austerity measures on trade union
organisation, the union movement in CEE has found ways to respond to serious
adversity in an imaginative and resourceful fashion. On one hand, this has
apparently taken the form of a re-politicisation of union identity as
leaders have moved to the fore in mobilising the working population against
the elite-driven affronts on social and employment entitlements. On the
other, more practical measures have been taken to rekindle trade union
activism, notably through the utilisation of social media for communication
purposes and through offering voice to marginalised and precarious groupings
as well as those operating in the shadow economy. (Bernaciak et al., 2014).
Key Dates and Contact Details
Submission of extended abstracts (maximum 1000 words not including
references): 29th December 2014 (24.00 CET). Submission of full papers: 31st
July 2015.
Please contact one of the guest editors for further information. Abstract
submission should be sent by an e-mail attachment to one of the guest
editors.
Anna Soulsby, Nottingham University Business School, UK.
anna.soulsby@nottingham.ac.uk
Graham Hollinshead, Business School, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
G.hollinshead@herts.ac.uk
Thomas Steger, University of Regensburg, Germany.
T.steger@wiwi.uni-regensberg.de
Richard Hyman, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK (Editor:
European Journal of Industrial Relations).
r.hyman@lse.ac.uk
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