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Hungary – the overlap with Workers’ Memorial Day. A foundation on which to stand up and organize?

Whereas most trade unions in Eastern Europe also commemorated 28 April because of the uneven effects and implications of Covid-19 on the loss of workers’ lives, in Hungary this was even more emphatic. In 2020, 1 May in Hungary seemed to especially overlap with events and statements made around Workers’ Memorial Day – a day […]

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Serbia – in the shadow of exploitation; recognizing the need for redefinition

In Serbia, May 1 was overshadowed by Orthodox Easter and by a moment of realization that many had to work on this day too, as the number of working poor increased, low, insufficient wages under subsistence level had become the new norm and reality in the country. Unlike in pre-Covid times, when Serbian trade unions […]

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Temporary Agency Work as a Form and Channel of Labour Migration

                  Among industrial relation specialists it is a common statement that in our times, atypical employment arrangements are becoming typical, or even the norm, and standard employment contracts the exception. This description fits well the recent rebound of employment via temporary agencies in Central Eastern Europe, and […]

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Socially Destructive Amendments to the Hungarian Labour Code Need to be Opposed

While demonstrations in Budapest and international reactions expressed outrage over the Hungarian Government’s attempt to shut down Central European University (CEU), on 11 April 2017, the Economic Committee of the Hungarian Parliament was also proposing legislative amendments to the Labor Code. The amendments – to the Labor Code, which is already often referred to as […]

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Precarious employment and the role of trade unions in post-socialist Central Europe

Since the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008, precarious employment has increasingly become the focus of attention for socially responsive international organizations and critical scholars and activists. Precarious employment has found its place at the centre of employment and social policy debates. Common in the conceptualization of precarious employment is the “lack of […]