What happened to organized labor when capitalism came to postcommunist Europe? Paul Kubicek provides a convincing answer to this question, based on case studies of Poland, Russia, Hungary, and Ukraine. He confirms the core story of labor weakness laid out in Stephen Crowley and David Ost, eds., Workers After Workers' States (2001). Kubicek draws on an impressive range of primary and secondary sources and dozens of interviews with union officials, mostly in 2001–2.

The central puzzle is why trade unions were not more influential, given their organizational resources and large pool of members (who now had the right to vote). Why were they not able to better defend their members from the painful economic changes of the early 1990s? The unions had greater potential, it seemed, than the other, weak actors present in the shattered postcommunist social landscape. Many predicted that class conflict would erupt following the introduction of radical market reform. But this did not occur (p. 69).

The answer to the puzzle of labor passivity is that the unions faced a double whammy—a disabling political legacy from their communist past and a host of new economic challenges as their countries introduced market reform and entered the global economy.

Most of the currently active unions in the region originated as official unions under the socialist state. New, independent unions have only recruited a small portion of the labor force and typically focused on playing national politics, rather than defending worker interests. The ex-official unions have a low level of public trust because of their former role as agents of management for the state (p. 35). In addition, their communist experience left them and their members with a paternalist mentality, an expectation that in return for loyalty, employers or the state would look after their interests (p. 24).

Labor mostly stood by and watched while the region's governments introduced wrenching policies of stabilization, liberalization, and privatization. Even in Hungary, a Socialist Party government that came to power in 1994 launched a tough austerity program in 1995—ignoring union opposition (p. 41). In Poland and Hungary, unions were able to delay privatization, but its inexorable advance accelerated de-unionization (p. 147). Marketization has led to a widening gap between winners and losers, both across and within industries, undermining the solidarity needed for effective collective action (p. 149).

At the same time, these economies were opening up to globalization. International competition to drive down costs and increase labor flexibility had already eroded well-established unions in Western countries (p. 59). Each of Kubicek's country chapters includes a careful analysis of the impact of globalization. Most unionists seem surprisingly open to foreign investment, which they see as bringing jobs and better work conditions (pp. 98, 191). According to the author, “The Marxist mantra of worker solidarity has been replaced by one that argues that what is good for business is good for workers” (p. 204). But the situation varies from firm to firm, reflecting the foreign company's business culture and home country practices (p. 97). German firms like Volkswagen appear to be the most labor-friendly, while American and South Korean firms such as Daewoo are seen as the most hostile.

In the 1990s, union membership was still 25%–35% of the labor force in Eastern Europe—high by contemporary international standards—and was 70%–80% in Russia and Ukraine (p. 34). Membership has been steadily falling, dropping to 14% in Poland by 2001. The unions are now concentrated in the old, state-owned “sunset” industries, and have made few inroads into the “new economy” or small business sector.

The unions were drawn into tripartite, corporatist institutions alongside employers and the state, but these bodies were a facade and lacked a real decision-making function. In postsocialist Europe, corporatism is a sign of labor's weakness, not its strength (p. 40). Strike activity has been modest, and was spontaneous, not organized. But strikes did contribute to the fall of governments in Poland and Bulgaria in 1993 (p. 37).

Chapter 4 explores the Polish case. Solidarity stands out as the only large mass movement in the region, but its achievement was toppling communism rather than defending workers' rights. The Solidarity government of 1989–93 introduced shock therapy, causing part of the union to break away, and the Solidarity-backed government that returned to power from 1997 to 2001 was more concerned with preserving national and Christian values than with labor issues (p. 84). Meanwhile, at the grassroots level, Solidarity had to compete for members with a union created by the communists in 1984. Kubicek concludes that in Poland, “[y]ears of ‘passive acceptance’ of various reform programs and management strategies have undermined unions' ability to press forward a pro-labor agenda” (p. 93).

In Russia (Chapter 5), the old official unions managed to cling to their bureaucratic niche, despite backing the losing side in the October 1993 confrontation between President Boris Yeltsin and the parliament. The unions were punished by losing control of social insurance funds to employers. Since then they have tried to prove their loyalty to the state, even backing the government's new labor code in 2001, which was condemned by independent unions for weakening collective bargaining rights (p. 110).

In Hungary (Chapter 6), the most successful transition economy, organized labor is divided among a plurality of competing unions. By 1994, the main successor union had fought off challenges from new right- and left-wing unions. But they also faced competition from elected works councils, introduced by the government to decentralize bargaining and weaken unions. In 1998, the new right-wing government dismantled the tripartite institutions and took away union control over health care and pensions.

The situation in Ukraine (Chapter 7) is similar to that of Russia, only more so. The reforms were slower, and the unions even more politically subdued—despite the high level of public discontent. East–West regional rivalries were an added complication deterring political action, although the independent miners' union did join the “Ukraine without Kuchma” protests in 2000–2001 (p. 171).

Kubicek paints a convincing picture of union disenfranchisement across the region. There is little good news to report, but it would have helped to have more discussion of the specific issues in which unions have engaged, such as layoffs, wage arrears, and minimum wage laws. Given the low level of official unemployment in Russia and Ukraine, one wonders whether unions played any role in limiting layoffs and encouraging public sector hiring.

Kubicek does not find the prevailing Western approaches to the socialist transition very relevant in explaining union passivity. The civil society literature tends to ignore economic interests, while the transitologists, extrapolating from Latin America, look for pacts between the leaders of well-organized social actors. Such strong actors with well-defined interests were largely absent in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps the most important negative consequence of a weak labor movement is that this contributed to the failure of democracy to establish deep roots in postsocialist society. People have the power to turn out governments, but they do not have any confidence in the ones that are elected (p. 198).