Documents Bernaciak, Magdalena 34 results

"This book investigates the role that foreign direct investment (FDI) in central-eastern and southern Europe has played in the post-crisis period, comparing patterns across countries and sectors.
An overarching objective of this publication is to assess the extent to which FDI can still be seen as a key driver of economic development, modernisation and convergence for Europe's low- and middle-income economies, taking into account also the risks and limiting factors associated with FDI."

"This report by ETUI researcher Magda Bernaciak, Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick (University of London) and Richard Hyman (London School of Economics) looks at how the diversity of European ‘trade unionisms' leads to a diversity of challenges. It outlines several imaginative initiatives and innovations undertaken by trade unions in recent years, especially in terms of membership organising, mergers and organisational restructuring, collective bargaining, social partnership and cross-border cooperation. "

"The paper analyses the changing architecture of the European automotive industry following the inclusion of East Central European (ECE) states into cross-border production networks. It identifies distinct periods of the sector's expansion to ECE, each marked by different policies of automotive OEMs and accompanied by varying responses by governments and unions. The first phase, lasting until late 1990s, was characterised by a predominantly market-seeking orientation of carmakers towards ECE and a clear-cut, hierarchical division of competences between "new" and "old" sites, not conducive to the emergence of cross-border union contacts. In the late 1990s, however, postcommunist countries' production profiles became similar to those of advanced West European producers, such as Germany, largely due to the organisational changes within the sector and FDI-attracting policies launched by ECE states. This spurred German unions' interests in cooperating with their Eastern counterparts, in an effort to attenuate cross-border competitive pressure and eliminate the East-West benchmarking threat. Finally, the recent crisis brought increasing involvement of Western states in the industry's affairs and the corresponding "national turn" in unions' behaviour. "

"This book provides a detailed account of the innovative practices pursued by trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe since 2008. The book covers eleven post-socialist states that joined the EU in 2004, 2007 and 2013: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

It looks at these innovations and the drivers behind it paying attention to the characteristics of the national/sectoral industrial relations institutions, the resources remaining at unions' disposal and the role of union agency.

The book also assesses the sustainability and impact of innovative union initiatives on unions' established roles and on their countries' industrial relations systems."