Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

instead of strengthening their position at the company and workplace levels. However, Meardi
(2012) found that union popularity in the CEECs increases when trade unions stay out of
politics. This has been confirmed by the growing legitimacy of the Solidarność trade union in
Poland after re-configuring the unions’ focus from politics to representing workers’ interests
at the company level. 34 Finally, international links have proved to be essential for union
revitalisation, as documented in the case of Estonian unions’ demands in the education
subsector and the Romanian unions’ efforts to obtain international funding for training union
members in competence and employability.
In sum, this chapter has documented the revitalisation potential of CEEC social partners. At
the same time, it acknowledges that social partner efforts to respond to post-enlargement and
post-crisis developments through coordinated action at the European, national, sectoral and
company levels have not yet brought forth significant changes to the decentralised,
fragmented industrial relations structure in place in most CEECs. Nevertheless, activities
undertaken by social partners across various CEECs, supported by EU-level efforts to
harmonise industrial relations structures across the EU, may in the long run contribute to
incremental changes in the state of industrial relations in the CEECs. Against the backdrop of
a weakening membership base of trade unions and employers’ associations and declining
bargaining coverage, this is an important argument. Forces operating against revitalisation
include employer and trade union fragmentation, and relatively underdeveloped international
networks of CEEC social partners.
34 See Meardi (2012) for elaboration.
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