Czech Employers' Associations and the Social Dialogue

Employers associations` represent new institutions in manycentral and eastern European countries that only emerged in theearly 1990s after the fall of the communist regime. Theseinstitutions are still rather weak and their membership base ismodest. This book examines whether the Czech EU accession had apositive effect on the employers` associations and the socialdialogue in the Czech Republic. The author starts with a theoreticintroduction on social dialogue and employers` associations andsets up hypotheses. Afterwards, she presents a detailed analysis ofthe Czech employers` confederations and associations. The followingchapters provide an overview of the Czech trade unions and thesocial dialogue on the national, sectoral and company level.Finally, she draws conclusions with regards to the hypotheses. Themain result is that the EU accession only had a temporarybolstering impact on the employers` associations and on the socialdialogue. Due to insufficient structural conditions they could notpermanently take over social and economic functions. The bookaddresses industrial relations researchers, social partners as wellas political decision makers.