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

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In this section, we will examine unionisation of workers and the image of the
trade union movement. The movement has had to undergo a complete transformation
because, after the trade union activities of the Soviet period came to
an end, there was a need to create in their place an institution based on the
Western-type principle of promoting the workers' interests. According to the
previous working life barometer for the Baltic countries, the wage earners
would like to have considerably more collective agreements (Antila &
Ylöstalo 1999, 62-65), and these could often be naturally allocated to the social
partners' field of activity. There would be both room and need for organised
promotion of interests. In order to succeed, however, this would require a
strengthened foundation of legitimation for the trade unions. On the basis of
this study, the trade union movement in the Baltic countries is still in great
difficulties.
UNIONISATION AND BARGAINING
In both Latvia and Lithuania, the number of members in the movement has
further decreased. Of the countries compared, membership of a trade union is
still the most typical in Latvia. There, nevertheless, only one in five wage
earners stated that they belonged to a union. In the other two countries,
Lithuania and Estonia, membership is still rarer. Now, only about one in ten
wage earners in Lithuania is a union member. Estonia is the only Baltic country
where trade union activity appears to have reached its lowest level already,
because the rate of unionisation had risen slightly during the three-year period
(1999-2001). Despite the change in the Estonian trend, the number of members
is still a long way from the 1996 level, for example: then, over one-fifth
of the wage earners belonged to a trade union.
An examination according to age groups sheds additional light on the unionisation
issue. In Latvia, the fall in membership has involved all the age groups.
The greatest relative decrease has been among young people, whose rate of
unionisation (8 %) is about half that in the previous survey. It is still true in
Latvia that the older the age group in question, the greater the likelihood of
belonging to a trade union.