Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFERENCES LITERATUR IN THE UKRAINE<br />
of certain segments operating according to<br />
different IR dynamics. Hence, each of the segments<br />
(state budget sector, privatized or about<br />
to be privatized enterprises, emergent private<br />
sector, and Transnational Corporations) were<br />
claimed to produce a different pattern of IR<br />
(Kabalina und Komarovsky 1997, Martin und<br />
Cristescu-Martin 2004, 2006, Sidenko und<br />
Kuziakiv 2003, Slomp, van Hoof und Moerel<br />
1996, Peng 2000) 2 .<br />
It should be recognized that while certain<br />
segments are conducive to certain types of IR,<br />
these arguments do not apply in full for the<br />
example of Ukraine. In education and medical<br />
services in Ukraine workers and independent<br />
unions were quite assertive in terms of their<br />
rights and demands. In contrast, unions remained<br />
salient in many privatized enterprises;<br />
and IR followed old-style paternalistic logic.<br />
Similarly, the continuity in the original IR<br />
practices in foreign companies was questioned<br />
elsewhere (e.g. Cooke 2006, Tholen 2007).<br />
Hence, the segmentation of the business systems<br />
alone is not sufficient in explaining IR<br />
outcomes. Rather, some insights are necessary<br />
into how the new IR system is structured and<br />
institutionalized. Whereas its institutional<br />
design is driven much by international practices<br />
and principles, the bottom-level change<br />
in enterprises, employers and unions proceeds<br />
more slowly. Here IR actors, in particular, still<br />
find themselves in the processes of<br />
formation, while their agency does<br />
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not always conform to the patterns of<br />
action imposed institutionally. I argue<br />
that the dynamic perspective of actors’<br />
formative processes and their interaction is<br />
superior in explaining the local segmentation<br />
of IR.<br />
IR INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN AND ACTORS’<br />
FORMATION<br />
Such unique simultaneous re-building of postsocialist<br />
IR arenas and actors can be addressed<br />
as the evolution of IR arenas in the sense of<br />
Müller-Jentsch’s actor-centered institutionalism<br />
(Müller-Jentsch 1996). On the one hand,<br />
the new institutional design is developed<br />
across former Soviet countries (hereafter<br />
FSU) in convergence with the principles<br />
of the International Labour Organization<br />
(ILO) and the European Social Model 3 . Such<br />
institutionalization from above (and from<br />
outside) is difficult in its deterministic view of<br />
the local processes (Burawoy und Verdery 1999,<br />
Grabher und Stark 1997, Stark 1998, Wollmann<br />
1997). Not least because the newly imposed set<br />
of rules regulates the patterns of interest and<br />
prescribes patterns of action that are still to<br />
emerge. As the construction of autonomous<br />
interest organizations is not completed (Slomp,<br />
van Hoof und Moerel 1996, Schienstock 1992),<br />
actors find themselves in the processes of (re)<br />
defining their roles and functions (Rippe 1985,<br />
Schienstock, Thompson und Traxler 1997).<br />
Therefore, it is not surprising that the new<br />
rules of the game laid down with international<br />
assistance cannot be institutionalized. This is<br />
confirmed by deficits in the functionality of<br />
law, collective bargaining and social dialogue in<br />
the region 4 .<br />
In the process of the institutionalization,<br />
currently fluid and contested IR arenas will<br />
be re-shaped during the processes of actors’<br />
formation and their capacity to mobilize the<br />
resources providing for their strength. From<br />
the perspective of the actor-centered institutionalism,<br />
institutions are treated in terms