policies, while arguing that the weakness of labor movements in the region is at least a
substantial part of the explanation for the general policy trend toward liberalism. Finally,
the paper will examine the mechanisms through which the liberal nature of the new
member states can prove consequential for the EU as a whole.
The Weakness of Postcommunist Labor
It is generally accepted that labor is relatively weak in postcommunist societies
(Bohle and Greskovits, 2006; Kubicek, 2004; Crowley and Ost, 2001; Crowley, 2004).
Rather than review all of the reasons this might be so, this section will examine some
additional evidence to create a fuller picture of this weakness.
It has often been pointed out, for instance, that union membership (density) rates
are quite low in eastern Europe in relative terms. But trade unions are not simply smaller
in the new member states, they also look different. Union members in east central Europe
are more likely to work in the public sector. For example (though the numbers have
presumably declined since) according to a 1998 survey, 76% of union members in
Slovenia, 71% in Slovakia, 82% in Latvia, 70% in Hungary and 77% in Poland were
public sector employees (the Czech Republic was an outlier at 45%). In western Europe,
France had the highest proportion of public sector union members at 66.3%, with the
others in the range of 31-53%. While the public sectors in postcommunist societies are
larger and employ more workers generally, union membership from the public sector
would appear to be skewed even after taking this into account. Poland, for instance, had
28.7% of its workforce in the public sector in 1998, yet according to the survey of the
same year 76.6% of union members were in the public sector (Visser, 2005; Laborsta). It
has been argued that unions are less often found in the new private sector in the
postcommunist societies, and these figures would appear to support that point. Women
are also more likely to be union members in postcommunist countries, a trait they share
with the Nordic countries, most likely because with a gendered division of labor women
make up a disproportionate share of employees in the public sector.
Convention