Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

LATVIA
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In many aspects of working life, Latvia has made progress in a good direction,
and earlier than in the other two Baltic countries. Taken as a whole, the
changes during the last few years have been very few. In a nutshell, one can
perhaps even speak of an unchanged situation. This is an interesting phenomenon,
since Latvia has otherwise been going through a period of rather great
(political) changes and uncertainty, and so one cannot speak of stabilisation as
such. An example of this in the political field is that at the time of writing,
Latvia has its tenth government in 11 years.
In Latvia, organisation into trade unions is commoner than elsewhere in the
Baltic countries. The degree of unionisation has nevertheless fallen during
recent years. There, in contrast to Estonia and Lithuania, the membership profile
of the trade unions is not weighted according to nationality, but rather the
unionisation is at the same level among Latvian nationals and among Russians.
One in five working persons is a trade union member. In Latvia, however,
as also in the other two Baltic nations, trade unions are definitely more
typical of the public than the private sector.
It can be assumed that the trade union movement has some kind of influence
over its members' affairs. The net earnings of the average trade union member
are better than those of a non-member. In general, considered as a whole, the
salary development in Latvia has been favourable. Another positive phenomenon
is the narrowing of the difference between men's and women's salaries in
the last few years. The gender gap in Latvian salaries is nowadays the same as
in Estonia (30 %).
Long days are worked in the private sector in Latvia. In the public sector,
where 38 % of the wage earners belong to trade unions, the actual working
hours average very close to the norm of 40 hours. In the private sector, on the
other hand, trade union membership is not usual, nor are the actual working
hours anywhere near the traditional 40-hour norm. On average, male privatesector
workers work almost 48 hours and the women 45 hours per week. The
gaps between the public and the private sector in this respect are noticeably
large. Thus, a lot of overtime is done in the private sector, but it often remains
uncompensated. This practice is the most general in the case of the manage-