Trade union responses to decarbonisation and digitalisation in Slovakia and Czechia: short-term gains versus long-term prospects

MARTIŠKOVÁ, Monika, Patrik GAŽO and Adam ŠUMICHRAST. Trade union responses to decarbonisation and digitalisation in Slovakia and Czechia: short-term gains versus long-term prospects. In TURI conference, Vilnius. 2022.

Basic information

• Original name: Trade union responses to decarbonisation and digitalisation in Slovakia and Czechia: short-term gains versus long-term prospects
• Authors: MARTIŠKOVÁ, Monika, Patrik GAŽO and Adam ŠUMICHRAST.
• Edition: TURI conference, Vilnius, 2022.

Other information

• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Tags: International impact

Abstract (in English)

Central and Eastern European trade unions have built their strategies and main agenda around the issue of low wages and incremental improvements of working conditions. While positive economic situation in the last seven years was helping them to attain significant wage increases above the inflation levels, and contributing to wage convergence, effects of Covid-19 crisis and upcoming challenges related to decarbonisation and digitalisation remain neglected in the collective bargaining. When discussing new challenges, some trade unions representatives recognize the need to address it but mostly in the form of unstructured discussions with social partners at the national and sector level most often as a reaction to proposed measures by policy-makers and employers. Despite at the company level, short-term interests are prefered to longer-term responses to labour market challenges, there are a few positive examples of trade union effort to bring new topics into the collective bargaining. These relate to requalification strategies and policies, demands for working time reduction, addressing challenges related to Covid-19 such as telework and home-office regulation, or addressing increasing temperatures in the workplaces. In the proposed presentation we follow implementation, or reasons for non-implementation, of measures related to new challenges on the labour market in several sectors (automotive, chemistry, energetics, public administration, retail) and we discuss trade union strategies behind their actions. We base our evidence on the data gained within the project mapping innovative practices and on evidence from 25 interviews related to two projects concerned with social partners responses to decarbonization in Czechia and Slovakia between 2021 and 2022.

Links

• MUNI/A/1460/2021, interní kód MU: Name: Výzvy udržitelné společnosti optikou humanitních a sociálních věd (Acronym: UDROP)

Investor: Masaryk University