At home and abroad: U.S. labor-market performance in international perspective

habits of thought formed over decades of statesocialist rule—have been fundamentally at oddswith a healthy adjustment to democratic capi-talism. The editors view this explanation, too,as implausible. Such a picture, they argue,implies stubborn adherence to a strongly de-fined set of ideas and values, whereas what hasbeen manifest during the years of transition hasbeen a wavering, unclear ideology and a weakunion identity.Chapters 1–10 are essays focusing on thestate of trade unions and the relationship be-tween labor and politics in ten countries. Thewriters are experts with extensive experience inthe regions they examine. The countries cov-ered are the Czech Republic (discussed by AnnaPollert), Hungary (Andras Toth), Slovakia(Jonathan Stein), Poland (David Ost), Romania(David A. Kideckel), Bulgaria (Grigor Gradev),Croatia (Marian Kokanovic´), Serbia (MihailArandarenko), Ukraine (Wlodzimierz Pankowand Evgenii Kopatko), and Russia (StephenCrowley).All ten essays accept the premise that labor inpost-communist Europe is weak, but the au-thors bring a variety of theoretical, method-ological, and empirical tools to bear in studyingthat phenomenon. Also differing across thesechapters is the structure of presentation. Be-cause of this variation, the chapters do not lendthemselves to cross-comparison. The editors ofthe volume say that they have deliberatelyavoided the comparative method because in-stitutions or events that indicate union strengthin one context might merely represent a carry-over from the communist years in another. Thequestion of labor’s weakness or strength can bemeaningfully answered, they argue, only withina particular national context.The authors of the country essays capablyoutline important trends in labor restructuringin post-communist Europe and Russia. Thechapters are based on diverse evidence derivedfrom in-depth case studies of the ten countries.Each chapter thus reads as an independentnational case study survey of labor weakness inpost-communist society, focusing on a specificaspect of union restructuring. Unfortunately,the volume does suffer expositionally from thelack of a unified analytical approach. Not onlyis it difficult to compare the countries’ experi-ences, but the want of coordination also resultsin inefficiency, as several general argumentsabout labor weakness are needlessly repeated.The volume’s conclusion, written again bythe editors, tries to explain the origins andimplications of apparent labor weakness. ForOst and Crowley, labor weakness means work-ers’ and trade unions’ inability to shape condi-tions of work or public policy in accord withtheir interests. The specific signs of such weak-ness they describe, citing evidence from theforegoing empirical chapters, are decliningtrade union membership, increasingly hierar-chical management, toothless collective bar-gaining, redundant agreements, infrequent andineffectual strike action, ineffective or nonex-istent political alliances, minimal union influ-ence over public policy, and declining materialoutcomes for workers.While the editors acknowledge that economicfactors, resource problems, and the institutionalspecifics of each country have played a part inunion weakness, a variable they judge even moreimportant is unions’ own attitudes and strate-gies, which in large part are in reaction to theircommunist past. In particular, labor’s experi-ences under communism made it hyper-skepti-cal of unions, an attitude that has been rein-forced by the dominant ideologies of the newpost-communist elites. Ost and Crowley regardthat crisis of socialist ideas as itself a key factorexplaining union weakness. Thus, globaliza-tion cannot fully explain the dilemmas faced bylabor in post-communist Europe, or the wayunions have thus far responded to those dilem-mas. There are factors unique to post-commu-nist societies. For the editors, the contexts inwhich union leaders act and the ideas that guidetheir activity matter.The volume as a whole is a helpful guide forunderstanding trends in labor power in post-communist Europe, as well as broader economicand political change both there and in othertransitional societies. I recommend it to aca-demic scholars and students of post-communistEurope. Practitioners and policy-makers fromthe region who are interested in the politicalaspects of union restructuring may also find thebook valuable, even though the editors refrainfrom saying whether they think any policy-ori-ented solution to the labor weakness problemholds promise.