Anna Pollert

Women, Work and Equal Opportunities in Post-Communist Transition

This article examines gender, work and equal opportunities (EO) in five central eastern European (CEE) candidates to an enlarged European Union (EU): the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. It demonstrates how capitalist transition has eroded womens Communist economic and social legacy, and considers implications for EO of the EU enlargement process. Analysis of decline begins with an outline of womens position under Communism, showing both similarities in gender inequality to those of capitalism, but also significant differences and advances. Post-transition is then examined in terms of the UN Gender Development Index, womens loss of social support, their decline in labour force participation and changes in employment and political representation. A limitation in available data is lack of information on unregulated employment and informal work - both major developments in CEE. The objective picture is then set against subjective responses to change - a key factor in gender EO prospects. Finally, developments in EO monitoring and enforcement agencies are reviewed, with the conclusion drawing these levels of enquiry together to assess the possibilities of EU enlargement as a spur to greater commitment to gender equality in CEE.

The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work

This article investigates the experience of low paid workers without union representation. It reports on the findings of a recent survey of 501 low paid, non-unionized workers who experienced problems at work. The results demonstrate that problems at work are widespread and, despite a strong propensity to take action to try to resolve them, most workers failed to achieve satisfactory resolutions. In the light of these results, we argue that the current UK Government definition of vulnerability is too narrow because our results suggest that a large proportion of low paid, unrepresented workers are at risk of being denied their employment rights. Therefore we question the ability of the UKs current system of predominantly non-unionized employment relations to deliver employment rights effectively and fairly.

Britain and Individual Employment Rights: ‘Paper Tigers, Fierce in Appearance but Missing in Tooth and Claw’

There is much evidence that the ‘European social model’ is under threat, with neoliberalism increasingly dominating policy both at EU and national levels. Within this trend, Britain stands out as already having a long-established free market tradition-Anglo-American in both industrial relations and corporate governance systems. This article seeks to illustrate how British state allegiance to a ‘flexible’ labour market has brought new restrictions to accessing statutory employment protection, the chief defence for ‘unorganized’ workers those who are neither unionized nor covered by collective agreements and who now comprise the majority of workers in Britain. The New Labour government, committed to voluntarism and fiexibility, has used the very instrument it avers to avoid legal regulation to limit access to employment tribunals, the final resort for legal enforcement of employment rights. The government has thus constrained its concessions to the European social model, which comprise a range of laws since 1997 enhancing individual employment rights, in its overarching neoliberal policy, by ensuring legal regulation remains difflcult to achieve and does not ‘burden’ business. This article, based on research both on legal developments, and on the social support mechanisms for non-unionized workers, seeks to demonstrate the extreme vulnerability of the unorganized worker in an increasingly free market Britain. How far this portrait has relevance to the rightward drift of Europe depends on the degree to which it can be exported, how far continental European systems are sufflciently institutionally embedded to resist this, and how successfully the European social model is defended.

Non-unionized young workers and organizing the unorganized:

Young workers are concentrated in low-waged, poorly organized industries. Although poorly unionized, evidence suggests that they are positively predisposed towards unions. Most research on youth and unionization is attitudinal, however, with little evidence on the kinds of problems they face and how they respond. This article contributes findings from a British survey in 2004 of 501 low-paid, unorganized workers and focuses on two groups of young workers: those between 16 and 21 years and those aged between 22 and 29 years. It shows commonalities and contrasts between these age groups in terms of typical workplace, types of problems encountered, responses to them, including collective action, views on trade union support and likelihood to join as a result of grievances. The older group is more active individually and collectively towards resolving problems at work. Yet both youth groups are as keen, or more so, on trade union help, than the wider sample.

Union Decline and Voice among Minority Ethnic Workers

This paper reports on a study of the experiences of minority ethnic workers in seeking advice and support for workplace problems. Our focus on three minority ethnic groups (Kurdish, Black Caribbean and South Asian) in three specific localities of London is unique in that it provides new micro-level qualitative data on whether or not local social networks are utilised to assist with employment problems. The research explores workers’ knowledge of what employment advice is available in their localities and their experiences of seeking advice. Interviewees included community advice workers, trade unionists, lawyers and funding bodies about the extent of local employment provision. The findings show that there are few places to turn and a dearth of individual employment advice.

Workplace Problems Among Kurdish Workers in London: Experiences of an ‘Invisible’ Community and the Role of Community Organisations as Support Networks

Little is known about the experiences of Kurdish workers in the UK and even less about how they attempt to resolve any difficulties or problems that arise at work. In part, this is due to academic oversight, but it is also because Kurdish workers are difficult to identify from statistical data and thus understanding of their labour market position is largely based on anecdotal information. The paper explores these workplace experiences, highlighting the complex relationship between employment, identity, community organisation and exile politics and how these intersect and affect the behaviour of Kurdish workers. The paper draws upon 61 interviews with workers from a variety of employment backgrounds to explore the experiences of workers from this ‘invisible’ community.

Informal Employment Dispute Resolution among Low-Wage Non-Union Workers: Does Managerially Initiated Workplace Voice Enhance Equity and Efficiency?

The decline of collective industrial relations has shifted the focus of industrial relations research to the study of individual employment disputes. In this article, we investigate whether employer-initiated workplace voice is associated with improved resolution of individual complaints or grievances workers make against employers. We find that our measure of workplace voice is associated with less serious problems, more informal methods of dispute resolution, more satisfactory outcomes for workers and lower quit rates. However, these findings need to be set against generally low rates of satisfactory dispute resolution for all employees in our sample.

Women's Employment and Service Sector Transformation in Central Eastern Europe: Case Studies in Retail in the Czech Republic

This paper examines workplace restructuring in three department stores in the Czech Republic in early 1994. All had previously belonged to the state-owned store chain of Czechoslovakia; one which we call Shop, was a major Prague store still in state ownership at the time of research, although it was about to undergo privatization. The other two stores belonged to Supershop, a US retailing chain which had bought thirteen department stores in Czechoslovakia in 1992. One branch was in Prague, and the other in a provincial town some fifty kilometres east of the capital. The study explores and compares the Czech and the American trajectories of change, as well as including a regional dimension in the contrast between the Prague labour market and outside the metropolis. The case studies provide an insight in an already feminised, but rapidly expanding and transforming, sector of a post-communist economy. They explore how sectoral contingencies, in terms of past practices, contemporary responses to new market circumstances, and labour market pressures create similarities in restructuring practice and employment patterns, despite contrasting ownership forms. On the other hand, they also show how contrasts between the two ownership forms influence the retailing concept, styles of management and employment relations. A key question to address is the outcome of the approach of each enterprise towards legacies of the past; the case of endogenous change illustrates the attempt to adapt embedded practices to new market conditions while that of multinational take-over shows the attempt to replace these entirely. The implications for the service sector and for a major sector of womens employment are drawn out.

De-collectivization and employment problems: the experiences of minority ethnic workers seeking help through Citizens Advice

This article draws on a study of the experiences of (primarily non-unionized) minority ethnic workers in seeking advice and support for employment problems in the context of the de-collectivization of employment relations in Britain. It focuses on one of the main recourses identified in the research, the Citizens Advice Bureau, its relationship with community organizations and with trade unions. Workers’ testimonies about their experiences of help with workplace grievances are supplemented with views of advice providers, community-based organizations and trade unionists. Findings illuminate the specific experiences of minority ethnic workers, as well as similarities with majority ethnic non-unionized workers and highlight the paucity of individual employment advice and a growing crisis for workers’ rights with the decline in collective union representation.

The Lived Experience of Isolation for Vulnerable Workers Facing Workplace Grievances in 21st-Century Britain

In the ‘Warwick Agreement’ with trade union leaders in 2004, the British government pledged support for ‘vulnerable workers’ and developed this policy in 2006. However, there is no policy acknowledgement that weak collective organization is the cause of worker vulnerability. This article is based on a definition of vulnerability as non-unionism and low pay and presents findings based on in-depth interviews with low-paid, non-unionized workers with employment grievances who approached the major British charity providing free advice, the Citizens Advice Bureau. This is framed in a contemporaneous survey of 500 low-paid, non-unionized workers with problems at work, which provides data on the kinds of problems experienced, responses to them and the pattern of outcomes for such workers. The study found a very low level of successful resolution. The significance of the qualitative evidence is that it illuminates the lived experience of isolation and poor resolution among workers seeking external help.