The weakness of social actors in CEE: exploiting or consolidating Trade Unions in post-communist Romania?

Abstract

Trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe exhibit a difficult organizational development, a high degree of fragmentation and a lack of strength. Focusing on the Romanian trade union confederations, this paper aims to provide an alternative explanation of their influence during the democratization process. The study emphasizes that, in the Romanian case, the articulation and the consolidation of the trade union movements were directly dependent on the relationship created with the political arena. In its turn, the reconfiguration of the trade unions’ politicization entailed a change in their internal structures and in their strategies. The general mechanisms of Romanian unions' transformation are scrutinized in the last section of this article by mobilizing the case of the civil servants interests representation after 1989.