Documents Gergely Szabó, Imre 3 results

"This article analyses the impact of new public management on employment relations in public healthcare in Hungary and Slovakia. We argue that hospital corporatization – a process which changed the ownership structure and management of public hospitals without privatization – created an opportunity for institutional change in collective bargaining. However, the interaction between hospital owners and managements, the state and trade unions accounts for the absence of major institutional change. Instead, corporatization helped maintain bargaining coordination in Slovakia and bargaining fragmentation in Hungary."

"The recent upsurge in healthcare labour disputes across Europe signals a shift in the attitude of public service professionals towards contentious politics. However, the analysis of these events so far has neglected the specific dilemmas of contention among professionals. To fill this gap, the article builds on social movements theory and claims that to achieve success, professional organizations need to adjust the protest tactics of the labour movement along the three dimensions of targeting, framing and coordination. As an alternative to mass strikes, the targeted use of the protest repertoire minimizes the costs and maximizes the visibility of collective action. Framing around service quality links wage demands to wider justification themes that resonate with the public. Coordination across groups with different skill levels strengthens the effect of both targeting and framing. A comparative study of four healthcare campaigns in four countries (Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland) confirms the key role that these dimensions play."

"The experience in Western Europe suggests that overreliance on institutional stability hinders trade union revitalization. This paper explores the other side of this coin: what is the impact of dismantling industrial relations institutions on union revitalization? It investigates the drivers and outcomes of the main revitalization strategies used by trade unions in Hungary and Romania as a response to the frontal attack of governments on their institutional supports post-2008. In both countries, national-level confederations took political action seeking to amend the labour laws that undermined their role and influence. At the company and occupational level, some trade unions increased their organizing efforts to retain their influence under an adverse legal framework. This article reveals that deinstitutionalization can be a driver of revitalization when trade unions are willing to take small steps to strengthen their links with rank-and-file members and with other unions, social movements or international organizations by using a combination of revitalization strategies. It also shows that unions have to simultaneously draw on different sets of power resources, particularly a mixture of organizational and societal power resources, to revitalize after losing institutional resources."