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Trade Unions in Transition: from Command to Market Economies Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle → 11 RUDOLF TRAUB-MERZ AND TIM PRINGLE (EDS) TRADE UNIONS IN TRANSITION FROM COMMAND TO MARKET ECONOMIES Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle (eds) Trade Unions in Transition Imprint Trade Unions in Transition – from Command to Market Economies Edited by Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle Published by: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastraße 28, 10785 Berlin © 2018 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Global Policy and Development Hiroshimastr. 28 | D-10785 Berlin | Germany Responsible: Mirko Herberg | International Trade Union Policy Phone: +49-30-269-35-7458 | Fax: +49-30-269-35-9255 www.fes.de/gewerkschaften Commercial use of all media published by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is not permitted without the written consent of the FES. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Design / Typesetting: pertext, Berlin Cover picture: Peter Andrews / REUTERS ISBN: 978-3-96250-159-4 RUDOLF TRAUB-MERZ AND TIM PRINGLE (EDS) TRADE UNIONS IN TRANSITION FROM COMMAND TO MARKET ECONOMIES Berlin 2018 Contents Foreword → 9 Trade Unions in Transition: From Command to Market Economies Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle → 11 Trade Unions in China Tim Pringle → 21 Trade Union Elections in China: Past, Present and Prospects Chris King-Chi Chan and Elaine Sio-Ieng Hui → 65 Employment, Labour Relations and Trade Union Strategies in the Automotive Industry in China Lu Zhang → 89 From Harmony to Conflict – Vietnamese Trade Unions on the Threshold of Reform Erwin Schweisshelm and Do Quynh Chi → 109 Trade Union Pluralism in Vietnam – Coping with Informal Associations Wolfgang Däubler → 149 Trade Unions in Russia – Between Survival and Subordination Rudolf Traub-Merz and Elena Gerasimova → 163 Russian Trade Unions and Wage Development Rudolf Traub-Merz → 211 Trade Unions in Ukraine: History, Structure and Challenges of Workers’ Representation Rudolf Traub-Merz and Lyudmyla Volynets → 233 The Long March – Trade Unions in the Political History of Poland Jan Czarzasty → 279 From Conflict to Cooperation – Trade Unions in Poland Piotr Ostrowski → 299 Hungarian Trade Unions from the Beginning of Transition to the New U-turn László Neumann → 317 Slovak Trade Unions at a Crossroads – From Bargaining to the Public Arena Marta Kahancová and Mária Sedláková → 347 The FDGB and Its Craft Union IG Metall in Pursuit of Self-Transformation Wolfgang Schroeder → 377 Industrial Relations in East Germany From a Worker-oriented Wage Policy to Counter Migration to the West to a Capital-oriented Incentive Policy to Encourage Migration to the East Wolfgang Schroeder → 407 So Who’s Transforming Whom? Frank Hoffer → 433 About the Authors → 449 Foreword This volume brings together studies on the dynamics of trade union- ism in three country groups: Russia / Ukraine, China / Vietnam and Poland / Hungary / Slovakia. What binds them together is the fact that these countries embarked on a transition from command to post-so- cialist market economies, even though they did this in different intensi- ties and with disparate political governance structure. While one group (Poland / Hungary / Slovakia) took »shelter« in the EU and framed their political and economic reforms in following guidelines from the West, another group (Russia / Ukraine) set off for a development course of its own; a third group (China / Vietnam) went for a dichotomous strategy, stepping with one foot into the world of market economies while leav- ing the other in the past of party-state regimes. Trade Unions were in the midst of all these reforms. The country reports analyze on how they were coping with leaving the past of play- ing fiddle to the party-state as transmission belts behind and adapting to the challenges which arise from capitalist markets, in which unions represent workers interests in collective bargaining. To develop a common framework for analysis (see for this the intro- duction), authors were invited to a writers workshop to St. Petersburg in June 2015. For the »larger« economies of the country groups (Russia, China, Vietnam, Poland) it was found valuable to have more than one report available while in the other cases authors were tasked to cover all dimension of transition »in one stroke«. The case of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was not in- cluded in the original project design but added later. Transition pro- cesses in the GDR and the reunification with the Republic of Ger- many were certainly unique and can hardly be used for comparative purposes; the »survival strategies« of GDR unions, exemplified in this book in the case of the IG Metal (East) and the integration of labour relations of the east into labour relations of the west are nevertheless 10 important for the understanding, to what extent a structure from the west can be superimposed to the east and become a story of success or failure. We are grateful to all who have contributed to this project and helped to shape this book with their presentations, inputs and discus- sions. We express our gratitude to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and here in particular the FES Global Trade Union Project for providing the financial resources for this publication. The Editors Trade Unions in Transition: From Command to Market Economies Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle Labour relations lie at the core of social transitions. This was the case when agrarian societies industrialised, when industrial societies turned into service-based economies and more recently when command econ- omies transited to market-based »post-socialist« economies. While the context, speed and spatial limits of transformations vary, they are all characterised by struggle as existing social relations are confronted with the possibility of being replaced – or at least re-arranged. Transition from command economies to market-based »post-social- ist« economies has frequently been framed as a double transition: the return of private enterprise alongside the democratic model of political governance. Both arenas of change are joined in theory by a commit- ment to the application of competition rules as the key mode of allocat- ing economic and political resources. The experience of the past three decades has proved the »double transition« to be an inadequate model, even as an ideal-type. Instead we can see three distinct models emerging, connecting economic and political governance in disparate modes. A. New members of the EU: central and eastern European countries that completed transition at economic and political levels as a pre- condition of EU membership. Eastern Germany may be regarded as a special case in this group. B. Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that have remained under Russian influence. Economic and political transition became mired in the trauma of the Chicago School–in- spired »big-bang« approach to economic reform and privatisation. 12 Rudolf Traub-Merz and Tim Pringle Formally, political systems developed democratic-pluralist elements but remain under significant constraints – some new, and some in- herited from the pre-reform era. C. China and Vietnam: Transition policies concentrated on economic reform but at a political level, the one-party state remains intact. As a core social relationship in the process of transition, labour relations are central to all three cases and manifest themselves in different and changing forms. For example, in central and eastern European coun- tries that have joined the EU, trade unions are striving to reproduce – more or less – the »classical« role assigned to them in capitalist econ- omies: fixing the price of labour and lobbying for pro-labour legislation in the development of social policies. In China and Vietnam, Party-led trade unions have struggled to meet the challenge of economic transi- tion by experimenting with localised reform projects. These pilots are constrained by authoritarian governance and concomitant political fear of the potential for a »second trade union« to emerge out of ever-pres- ent labour unrest. In the CIS countries and Russia, various forms of social partnership between traditional trade unions and the state have succeeded in ensuring that new trade unions remain weak alternatives to the ongoing dominance of traditional albeit repackaged trade union organisations. Using our labour lens to deconstruct the political economy of each of the three country clusters is necessarily a complex undertaking. The co-existence of an emerging and dynamic private economic sector alongside a restructuring and shrinking – more or less – state sector generates elite competition for resources that renders the state both a site of contestation and a force in contestation. Across all three coun- try groups, the state retains the function of regulating the terms and conditions of the capital–labour relationship (Jessop 2002: 45) and has developed legal and political frameworks accordingly. The social forces that determine these processes of transition have in turn been compli- cated by inter-union rivalries and forms of labour resistance that have on occasion been massive but have sometimes manifested themselves outside the organisational shelter of unions. Four levels of comparative trade union transition and institutional integration in the new social relations have been distinguished as an Trade Unions in Transition: From Command to Market Economies 13 analytical compass to guide the contributions in this volume through the categories and inevitable grey areas that exist between them. (i) Trade unions and the state: transition from
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