Inheritance, imitation and genuine solutions (institution building in Hungarian labour relations)

Abstract

A MULTINATIONAL SEEKING IN VAIN A UNION as a counterpart in bargaining; another multinational expelling union representatives from the firm; companies with good and bad labour relations; small and medium-size firms with no unions at all-all these may be found in news items, case-studies and episodes from the near past of labour relations in transformation and development in the post-socialist countries. After five to six years of the political, social and economic transformation can we already speak about a new system in the field of labour relations, or is it still in transformation? Is the experience of this half-decade sufficient to identify the features of the new emerging system with any of the already known patterns of labour relations? In the late 1980s and early 1990s in Central and Eastern Europe there were widespread illusions as to the prospects of labour relations and the new role of employees and their interest associations. The international, economic and social conditions of the real processes of social transformation in these countries, however, framed events differently, and the new institutions of labour relations and social cooperation seem to display unexpected patterns. Social scientists and politicians as well as unionists are now seeking to understand the real logic of the transformation process and the motives and intentions of the social partners within it. Since the social and economic context of the current transformation process varies from country to country in Eastern and East-Central Europe, very different strategies and practices of institution building, combined with national and local traditions of interest representation and participation, are creating a rich variety of new autonomous systems of labour relations. Several elements of the political and economic transformation are closely connected to the shaping of the labour relations system in the post-socialist countries. Some of them are supporting its development, while others are unfavourable to its strengthening. Certain factors are unique in the different Central and East European countries, others represent international trends. This article aims to illustrate the characteristics of institution building in the field of labour relations in Hungary. In Hungary the new democratic political order, its laws and institutions, has finally ensured the existence of an autonomous labour relations system after a long period of reforms since the late 1960s aiming at loosening the subordination of labour relations to a monolithic political order. The political transformation was carried out by social actors and organisations that-even if newly created in democratic processes-were