Works councils were introduced in Hungary in 1992, partly on the model of the German industrial relations system. The objective was to resolve a crisis of industrial relations in the transition to a market economy: the fragmentation of trade unions, the vacuum of institutionalization, and the representation gap for non-union workers. Drawing on case study research, this article evaluates the experience to date and concludes that the `artificial' imposition of an unfamiliar structure of employee representation has been only partly successful, though arguably contributing to the consolidation of industrial relations in a multi-union environment.
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