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The Paradox of Post-Communist Trade Unionism: ‘You Can't Want What You Can't Imagine’

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  • Epp Kallaste
  • Charles Woolfson

Abstract

This article explores employee attitudes towards trade union membership in the post-communist Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It reports on a comparative empirical social survey of attitudes towards representation. We suggest that in addition to those employees who are union members and those who fall within an identifiable ‘representation gap’, there is a sizeable group of ‘undecided’ employees who could be persuaded to join trade unions, if they could see the relevance of collective representation. We argue that this relatively large group could be specific to the Central and East European countries, and employees who fall within the commonly understood representation gap in other countries can be found within this undecided group in Baltic countries. Trade unions therefore face a considerable challenge in proving their relevance to such employees, a problem that has wider resonances in a European context but may be more difficult to resolve in the Central and East European countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Epp Kallaste & Charles Woolfson, 2009. "The Paradox of Post-Communist Trade Unionism: ‘You Can't Want What You Can't Imagine’," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 20(1), pages 93-109, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:20:y:2009:i:1:p:93-109
    DOI: 10.1177/103530460902000107
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rafael Gomez & Seymour Martin Lipset & Noah Meltz, 2001. "Frustrated Demand for Unionisation: the Case of the United States and Canada Revisited," CEP Discussion Papers dp0492, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez, 2005. "Why Have Workers Stopped Joining Unions? The Rise in Never‐Membership in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 43(1), pages 67-92, March.
    3. Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez & Morley Gunderson & Noah Meltz, 2005. "Youth-Adult Differences in the Demand for Unionization: Are American, British, and Canadian Workers All That Different?," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 26(1), pages 155-167, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jaanika Meriküll & Maryna Tverdostup, 2020. "The Gap That Survived The Transition: The Gender Wage Gap Over Three Decades In Estonia," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 127, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    2. Simona Ferraro & Jaanika Meriküll & Karsten Staehr, 2018. "Minimum wages and the wage distribution in Estonia," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(49), pages 5253-5268, October.
    3. Piotr Żuk, 2017. "Employment structures, employee attitudes and workplace resistance in neoliberal Poland," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 91-112, March.
    4. Ivlevs, Artjoms & Veliziotis, Michail, 2015. "What Do Unions Do in Times of Economic Crisis? Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 9466, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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