中東欧諸国の労使関係とEU社会的対話の行方

抄録

The Central and Eastern European Countries (the CEEC) have been undergoing the radical transformation from the socialist economy to the market economy since the collapse of the socialist regime. Since the middle of 1990s their economies have been developing thanks to the large inflow of the foreign direct investment mainly from the EU countries, and they acquire the new chance of the economic development by the accession to the EU.
While the CEEC have to comply with the law and rule of the EU by the accession to the EU and are forced to carry out the radical reforms of their social and economic structures in order to be adapted to the competition regime of the EU, they would be the competitor to the Western European Countries, taking advantage of the low wages and corporate taxes, the flexible labor markets etc. Many multinational companies, mainly Western European companies, are shifting their manufacturing plants from the Western Europe to the Central and Eastern Europe. As the shifts are accelerating, the fears of further job drain and higher unemployment are growing among the Western Europe, and the labors and trade unions in the Western Europe are increasingly under the pressure of wage cost cut, dismiss and deregulation of the employment protection. In other words, they are being threatened by “social dumping” from the East.
Against such threat of social dumping from the East, the social democratic group in the EU, composed by mainly the trade unions, social democratic parties, are trying to save their corporatist industrial relations and the social models by enhancing the social dialogue strategy and extending them to the CEEC. But their strategy are faced with difficulties even in the Western European countries. The bargaining powers of the trade unions are weakening in the Western European countries because of declining density of the trade unions. In the CEEC, the trade unions are much weaker. Moreover the association of employers, which should be the social partner of the trade union in the social dialogue, are decisively lack, whereas the people hope social cohesion and stability after the radical and long transformation from the socialist economy to the market economy. The enlargement is the challenge not only to the CEEC, but also to the Western European countries.