From a handful of activists towards an organising subculture: institutionalisation of transnational union organising in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

German

French

In this article the question of how transnational organising has become institutionalised in some trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is examined by studying three prominent organising initiatives in the region. It is argued that international union networks, facilitated by European integration, and the meagre resources of unions in the region have affected the development of organising with a transnational dimension. Originally initiated by a few activists, by the early 2020s organising has shown some promising results and has become an accepted strategy for strengthening unions. But local unions still lack sufficient resources of their own to organise properly. This has encouraged the institutionalisation of transnational organising. Although this has provided CEE unions with more resources, it also gives rise to problems of its own, notably the need for CEE unions to adjust their operations in accordance with the funding process and funders’ preferences.

Keywords

Central and Eastern Europe trade union organising transnational union cooperation

Introduction

Membership is vital to trade union survival. Although it is sometimes still possible for unions to secure gains for workers without high membership numbers (for example, through collective bargaining and political lobbying), higher union density confers greater legitimacy. Membership also remains a vital and sustainable power resource no matter how the external environment changes. Union density has been in constant decline in Central and Eastern Europe for a variety of reasons. It is related, for one thing, to the anti-union environment cultivated alongside the imposition of neoliberalism, but also affected by the Soviet legacy, a period in which unions were just a ‘transmission belt’ for the Party (Ost, 2009). Trade unions’ strategic choices have come into play as well. For example, Kahancová (2015) argues that in the wake of European Union (EU) accession Central and Eastern European unions have focused more on strengthening other resources, such as their capacity to influence labour legislation, than on increasing their membership base. Some unions of course have launched a variety of recruitment initiatives and devoted resources to increasing membership levels (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017; Mrozowicki, 2014; Pedersini, 2010). Nevertheless, until the late 2000s only the Polish unions had professionalised organising activities and conducted fairly large-scale centralised organising campaigns (Czarzasty et al., 2014), while in general membership recruitment in Central and Eastern Europe has taken the form of isolated sectoral or company-based activities (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017; Pedersini, 2010).

Since the beginning of the 2010s, however, transnational organising campaigns have come to the fore in Central and Eastern Europe. To date there has been little comparative research on this development. This article fills the gap by studying three prominent and durable initiatives in the region: the Baltic Organising Academy (BOA), the Baltic Organizing Alliance (BOA 2.0) and the Central Europe Organising Centre (COZZ). Transnational organising is a noteworthy phenomenon, as coordinated organising activities have previously been fairly rare in the region. A range of barriers have to be overcome in order to implement union organising as a strategy in contexts in which other strategies and union identities have been predominant. Furthermore, transnational cooperation on organising entails a shift away from trade unions’ general national orientation (Kall et al., 2019). The few studies that have covered organising efforts in Central and Eastern Europe to date (for example, Mrozowicki, 2014) focus mainly on the period up to the early 2010s and limited attention is paid to the transnational dimension. Although the Baltic Organising Academy has been studied (for example, Kall et al., 2019), the analyses have focused on Estonia and a comparative perspective is lacking. This article seeks to answer the following questions: (i) how have the transnational organising activities of BOA, BOA 2.0 and COZZ become institutionalised; and (ii) what have been the main outcomes of transnational organising in Central and Eastern Europe?

This article argues that international union networks in which ideas on organising have spread have played a crucial role in the development of transnational organising in the region. European integration and CEE unions’ lack of resources and weak position have further facilitated this. By the beginning of the 2020s, organising had been tried with promising results with several unions accepting it as an important factor in strengthening unions. Nevertheless, they still lack their own resources to hire organisers and conduct campaigns. In response we have seen an institutionalisation of organising with a transnational dimension in some trade unions in the region. Although transnational organising has provided Central and Eastern European unions with more resources, it also gives rise to certain problems. Most notably, CEE unions find themselves having to adjust their operations in accordance with funding processes and funders’ preferences, which are not always aligned with their own.

The structure of this article is as follows. First, the literature section provides an overview of organising model unionism and its implementation in the CEE context, highlighting the motives and barriers for organising. Section 2 emphasises the role of European integration in enhancing the development of transnational organising. The methodology section introduces data and the analytical approach, followed by a comparative analysis of the three cases already mentioned, presenting the process by which transnational organising has become institutionalised. A concluding discussion summarises the main findings.

Organising against the dominant union culture and institutions

Depending on the context, organising is generally considered a strategy by which unions may revitalise themselves, together with servicing, international links, political action, coalition-building, partnership with employers and organisational restructuring (Frege and Kelly, 2003; Meardi, 2007). As Frege and Kelly (2003: 9) put it: ‘Organizing focuses primarily on the acquisition of membership, but, in addition, could create and strengthen workplace representation. This in turn might increase the union’s mobilizing capacity and its labour market power.’ Although organising and recruitment are sometimes used as synonyms, organising commonly relates to an organising model that has its roots in social movement unionism (Seidman, 2011). Instead of just being about increasing union membership by a variety of means, it also emphasises the importance of empowering and mobilising members, organising collective action and campaigns for improving working conditions, but also around wider social justice issues (Heery et al., 2000).

Ideas about the organising model were born in the Global South (Seidman, 2011) and then implemented in the anti-union environment of the United States in the 1980s (Banks and Metzgar, 1989). Since then the model has spread across the globe as a potential union revitalisation strategy, first to liberal market economies (for example, Heery, 2001) and later also to more coordinated ones (for example, Turner, 2009). Comprehensive and rank-and-file intensive organising campaigns – including such elements as person-to-person contacts, escalating pressure tactics, emphasis on fairness and union democracy – have been successful in helping unions in anti-union environments to gain legitimacy and stronger standing over and against employers (Bronfenbrenner, 1997). They have not succeeded, however, in reversing the general trend of union decline, although this may be because campaigns have not been comprehensive enough (Carter and Cooper, 2002; Simms et al., 2013). Unions in different contexts have generally adjusted the model to local circumstances. Indeed, one of the problematic aspects of implementing union strategies developed in another country is the specific context: an approach effective in one place may generate a backlash in others (Mrozowicki, 2014; Simms et al., 2013). Adjusting the model, however, taking into consideration existing union identities, practices and priorities, might mean that some important elements are lost and the approach might not work effectively or lose its initial purpose.

Motives for launching an organising campaign may be related to the features of the industrial relations system and the position of trade unions within it. For example, if other strategies – such as sectoral negotiations or political lobbying – are not available to unions then organising might seem an attractive alternative. Well-institutionalised social dialogue can lessen unions’ interest in increasing their membership levels. This is hardly the case in Central and Eastern Europe, Slovenia being an exception to some extent (Mrozowicki, 2014). In most CEE countries/sectors the role of unions is relatively weakly institutionalised and unions lack political and institutional leverage to push through their demands (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017; Mrozowicki, 2014; Ost, 2009). The context thus seems fertile for organising, as comprehensive campaigns focusing on membership increase and mobilisation could help to strengthen the unions’ position despite a difficult external environment.

Nevertheless, there are numerous barriers. For example, union cultures in the region are not favourable for organising; there is organisational inertia; and unions prefer other (path-dependent) strategies, such as servicing, partnership with employers or cooperation with political parties. Organising strategy can be at odds with servicing and partnership-based approaches that focus on other (less adversarial) union actions, which are more prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe. CEE trade unions have relied heavily on routine servicing of their existing members (Mrozowicki, 2014; Pedersini, 2010). Furthermore, as Kahancová (2015) argues, CEE unions have focused more on strengthening other resources, such as their capacity to influence labour legislation, organise public protests and gain political support, than on boosting membership. Organising is also extremely resource intensive: devoting resources to recruiting new members takes them away from providing union services to existing members or using resources for implementing alternative strategies (Heery et al., 2000). Generally, CEE unions lack the money to conduct organising campaigns, or use their limited resources for other aims (Mrozowicki, 2014; Ost, 2009).

This is not to say that CEE unions have not tried to increase their membership levels, but the organising model unionism is only one way to approach it. First, providing individual services and benefits as a way to recruit and keep members has been common (Pedersini, 2010). Unions can also focus on specific group-based needs and values or gain members by engaging in other activities, such as negotiations with employers or conducting awareness-raising campaigns (Pedersini, 2010). For example, Bulgaria’s biggest union confederation CITUB designed large-scale campaigns on social and labour rights (Bernaciak et al., 2014). These kinds of campaigns might be especially relevant in CEE where knowledge about unions (in a democratic setting) has been relatively low. Unions can also recruit members through their shop stewards’ networks. There have not been many regional studies that evaluate the effectiveness of different strategies on increasing membership. A notable exception is Mrozowicki (2014), who has studied the automotive and retail sectors in Estonia, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, concluding that unions relying on routinised recruitment at the company level did not manage to increase membership. Those combining a variety of strategies, such as initiating workplace contacts combined with worker mobilisation and more centralised approaches to organising yielded better results (Mrozowicki, 2014).

The Independent Self-Governing Trade Union ‘Solidarity’ (Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy ‘Solidarność’, NSZZ Solidarność) was the first, and for a long time only, union in Central and Eastern Europe practising US-inspired centrally coordinated organising campaigns, commencing in the late 1990s. According to Krzywdzinski (2010), the climate within NSZZ Solidarność was conducive to the development of a new strategic direction as the union was losing political influence. Although NSZZ Solidarność has lost a lot of members since the beginning of the 1990s, it managed to slow the decline between 2005 and 2008, and in some regions, membership increased (Czarzasty et al., 2014: 121). One successful organising campaign was in the Kaufland hypermarket in 2010, resulting in a membership increase of 1000 workers in one year, pay increases and transformation of temporary contracts into open-ended ones (Mrozowicki et al., 2013). After years of organising, however, it has still encountered opposition within the union, in competition with the union’s traditional strategies of servicing and political activities (Krzywdzinski, 2010). As of 2023 NSZZ Solidarność no longer has a central organising department, but organising is done via regional structures.

Compared to the earlier period, since the early 2010s organising with the strategic and financial help of foreign/international unions has become one notable way of increasing membership in a variety of contexts in Central and Eastern Europe. In the next section I will present how international union networks have contributed to this development, facilitated by European integration.

Utilising international networks for union organising facilitated by EU integration

In addition to culture and institutions, the role of union leaders and activists in promoting the organising approach is crucial. Several authors have highlighted that taking over the model from other contexts is related to activists learning about it through cooperation with unions from other countries and later promoting it in their home setting (Carter and Cooper, 2002; Heery et al., 2000). Indeed, NSZZ Solidarność, when starting their campaigns in the 1990s, were influenced by their contacts with the model’s proponents, US unions SEIU and AFL-CIO (Krzywdzinski, 2010). The aspects emphasised in the previous section, however, indicate that even when certain unionists would prefer to focus on organising, they might encounter opposition within their union or just lack the resources to pursue it. This can push organising advocates to look for support outside the country. European labour market integration has made this more accessible for CEE unions.

First, intensified market interdependencies between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe have given western European unions an additional motivation to support their CEE counterparts, providing a structural incentive to cooperate. It can be argued that transnational strategies are deemed useful only when national ones are either absent or thought to be less efficient (Bernaciak, 2010). Unions might prefer to focus on securing their labour markets using local strategies, such as pushing through legislative changes to regulate national labour markets. The free movement of capital, labour and services within the European single market, however, has strongly motivated western European unions to support their Central and Eastern European counterparts in their efforts to gain a better bargaining position vis-à-vis employers and to improve labour standards in their region. This also exerts a clear influence on wages and working conditions in western European countries (Bernaciak, 2010; Greer et al., 2013; Meardi, 2012). Regarding CEE unions, Mrozowicki (2014) has noted that in the retail sector, characterised by limited internal solidarity and generally low union power resources, the support of western European trade unions has been especially important for organising, while in the automotive sector unions benefited from more appealing local options.

Secondly, the integration of CEE unions into western European union culture and structures has made it possible to develop close relations, common ideas and action plans. CEE unions joined the European Trade Union Confederation and European trade union federations, that have become important bodies by which CEE unions may gain EU-level representation (Bernaciak et al., 2014). Although EU-level union bodies generally focus on developing common guidelines and influencing EU-level policies, they are important for network development and unionists’ socialisation. This is crucial for cross-border cooperation (Meardi, 2012). The networks enable the transfer of new ideas and their acceptance by unionists. This may facilitate the development of institutions of cooperation (Pernicka et al., 2017). As ideas on organising are circulating among unions and union federations in Europe, it is reasonable to assume that they are also being discussed within European structures that bring together unionists across the EU.

Furthermore, after joining the European Union, CEE unions became eligible for certain types of funding, which made it possible to cooperate with other actors, including foreign unions. The impact of EU funding on organising is not clear. On the one hand, EU funding has been mainly social partnership oriented. This may push unions into favouring alternative strategies to organising. Funding has helped to increase trade union capacities, however, and has occasionally been used for (indirect) member recruitment activities, as in the case of the Slovenian Counselling Office for Migrants (Samaluk and Kall, 2023). It can also be used for activities that support organising.

Although European integration has diminished some barriers to cross-border trade union cooperation, important challenges remain. Notably, union cooperation tends to be one-off and short-term. EU funding is also project-based, which can bring about the projectification of union activities and foster precarious employment among those working on projects (Samaluk and Kall, 2023). Even though some cooperation projects on organising in Central and Eastern Europe last one or even five years, they might not bring sufficient membership increases to make organising sustainable without foreign funding (Kall, 2020). The other potentially problematic aspect of transnational activities is that unions, which are dependent on foreign/EU funding, might lose some autonomy, being subject to funding logic. This might become especially important if cooperating unions have diverging interests or ideas on how to pursue some aims. This happened with the European Migrant Workers Union (Greer et al., 2013). Successful transnational (organising) activities are thereby put into jeopardy.

Methodology

The literature section highlighted multiple barriers to organising and indicated that relying on foreign funding for conducting organising campaigns raises further issues, such as the willingness of the parties to take a transnational approach and make it sustainable. Nevertheless, transnational organising has come to the fore in several CEE countries. The aim of this article is to elaborate how, despite all the barriers, it has been integrated into practice in Central and Eastern Europe and what kind of outcomes there have been.

These issues are examined on the basis of three case studies of prominent transnational organising initiatives in the region: the Baltic Organising Academy (BOA), active between 2011 and 2017, its successor the Baltic Organizing Alliance (BOA 2.0), launched in 2018, and the Central Europe Organising Centre (COZZ), started in 2016 (in Visegrád countries). These cases were chosen because they share all the following features: they have relied on the Anglophone organising model of unionism; they have involved multiple CEE countries (but in two different sub-regions); they have depended on international funding, but they have been relatively durable and have gradually become institutionalised. This makes it possible to make some generalisations about transnational organising.

The first data source I use comprises documentary materials available in English, especially newsletters and the homepages of the relevant initiatives. This provides context and some quantitative details. For the BOA I also have 27 progress reports, meeting minutes and cooperation agreements, provided by central figures of the initiative. There are also some previously published studies. The second type of data consists of expert interviews with unionists involved in these initiatives on the CEE side, with the aim of providing insights into their perspective and experiences. While the most extensive data set is related to the BOA (collected between 2014 and 2020, including 16 interviews with Estonian union officials, organisers and activists), in 2023 I conducted three expert interviews with BOA 2.0 officials (one per country) and one with COZZ (there is only one interview because the COZZ team does not wish to share much information about their activities at present). All interviews were conducted by the author, in Estonian (her mother tongue) with Estonian trade unionists, and in English with other CEE unionists. Thus, some perspectives might be lacking because not all CEE unionists were willing to give an interview in English or Estonian. Especially in the case of the BOA 2.0 and COZZ this article studies the issues top-down, focusing on high-level officials’ perspectives and on publicly available information in English. Future studies could complement this with a wider set of sources and perspectives (also those of funders).

To answer the research questions, the data have been analysed thematically and the three initiatives compared and contrasted, based on the following dimensions: reasons for launching the initiative; overcoming barriers to organising and transnational cooperation; aims of the initiatives; funding; organisational forms; positive effects; and problems.

The institutionalisation of transnational organising in CEE

Transnational networks, labour market interdependencies and organising ideas

The Baltic Organising Academy was started in 2011 by a small group of trade unionists from the Baltic states and the Nordic countries with experience of transnational cooperation dating back to the early 1990s. It aimed to implement Anglophone trade union organising model campaigns in the Baltic states with the strategic and financial support of Nordic unions. One of the BOA officials interviewed (2014) mentioned that the initial idea was developed in an aeroplane on the way back from the Baltic Sea Trade Union Network meeting when one Estonian and one Finnish unionist ended up on the same flight and started talking about the bleak decline of union density in the Baltic states.

As Kall (2020) argues, having studied Estonian-Finnish cooperation around the BOA, the initiative represented a radical union innovation in Estonia, where traditional strategies include routine servicing of existing members, non-confrontational collective bargaining and social dialogue (similar to Finland). Its implementation was not smooth but required consistent work. The proponents of organising – having studied the model abroad and utilising international contacts with organising unions – were crucial in setting up the Academy, drafting plans and convincing others to come on board and try the approach out, and later also keeping the initiative going (Kall et al., 2019).

The Finnish unionists who joined the BOA stated that they were motivated by the labour market interdependencies between their countries. They saw helping Baltic unions as a way of protecting their own labour standards, but they were also in the habit of cooperating. This had enabled them to develop personal connections, and common (cooperative) norms and objectives (Kall et al., 2019). Estonian unionists similarly mentioned the habit of cooperation as a reason for joining the Academy, in addition to their lack of resources, including low union density and problems with signing collective agreements (Kall et al., 2019).

The BOA ended in 2017, but a new agreement was signed on the Baltic Organizing Alliance, the so-called BOA 2.0, at the end of the year. This organisation relied on established Baltic-Nordic organising networks and funding streams from Nordic unions. It aimed to continue the organising work of the BOA, establishing a more permanent organisational and management structure, as explained below.

The third prominent example of transnational organising in the region is the Central Europe Organising Centre, established as a foundation in 2016 by UNI Europa, a European trade union federation uniting seven million service workers. The story of the origins of COZZ is quite similar to that of the BOA, where a few activists, trained in organising model principles, thought it would be a good idea to try the model out in Central and Eastern Europe, where hitherto nothing else had really worked. UNI was willing to support first a test case of organising in one sector, and if it worked to establish a centre. One important reason for this was that Central and Eastern Europe was attracting multinationals, and regional UNI affiliates were not being active and effective enough in unionising them, partly because of their lack of resources (interview with COZZ official, 2023).

Lack of local resources, reliance on foreign funding and setting up organisations

Throughout the interviews CEE unionists emphasised the vicious circle of low membership leading to lack of resources (and vice versa). Thus, it is not surprising that they have generally celebrated foreign unions’ willingness to finance activities aimed at increasing their membership base.

Initially, 32 sectoral unions joined the BOA, mainly from Finland and Estonia. They formed the BOA steering group, which took the main role in planning and implementing the project. Eleven Finnish, two Swedish and four Danish unions provided the resources used to set up the Academy, coordinating the organising campaigns, aiming to increase unionisation and mobilise and empower workers (Häkkinen, 2013). BOA activities were launched in Estonia, with campaigns in 2012 in transport, industry and private services. Over the years, the number of organisers Estonian unions hired using Nordic funds remained at around six, each concentrating on a specific target company. Funding was based on an annual fundraising, in which each Baltic union had to find a Nordic counterpart willing to support their organising activities (mostly financing organisers’ salaries), and also to contribute 35 per cent of membership fees generated by organising back into further organising (Häkkinen, 2013).

For the BOA 2.0 the Baltic unions formed a separate association, aiming to support and promote the development of organising structures, strategies, training and other educational activities. In 2023 the BOA 2.0 had seven member-organisations: two from Estonia, two from Latvia and three from Lithuania. Unlike the initial BOA, the association’s juridical body was founded with an unlimited term and does not include Nordic unions as members. The latter act as supporters with whom a separate cooperation agreement is signed when they agree to fund organising campaigns in a specific sector. The BOA 2.0’s management board consists of representatives from each Baltic country participating in the Association. According to one of the founding BOA 2.0 officials, the reasons for the new structure were related to the pressure imposed by Nordic unions, who wanted the Baltic unions to take more responsibility for the new initiative (interview with BOA 2.0 official #1, 2023).

BOA 2.0 activities have relied heavily on Nordic union resources. Although the Baltic unions in the BOA 2.0 are supposed to direct 20 per cent of their membership income from organising back into further organising activities, in interviews in 2023 they stated they were still largely dependent on annual fundraising by Nordic unions, at least as regards hiring organisers. With Nordic support, between 2018 and 2021 the BOA 2.0 had one lead organiser, coordinating organising in three Baltic states, and several organisers working in different sectoral unions. At the beginning of 2023, however, the lead organiser quit and only two organisers were left. Nordic unions have not been willing to provide further funds, as previous results have not been as promising as they hoped, and the organiser candidates chosen by the Baltic unions were not ideally qualified (interview with BOA 2.0 official #1, 2023). Interviewed Baltic unionists, on the other hand, feel that the Nordic unionists do not fully grasp the local context and the difficulties involved in finding suitable organisers and achieving certain aims. The environment is rather different in the Baltic states and the Nordic countries. Nevertheless, they also feel that participating in the Alliance and receiving Nordic funding is the only current option enabling them to practise (proper) organising. Their own union resources are not viable, generally being just enough to retain existing members.

COZZ has, to a certain extent, overcome the challenges the BOAs have faced by setting up a permanent organisation (in the form of a foundation) and securing a steady stream of funding from UNI. In 2023 they have teams of organisers located in Poland, Hungary and Czechia. The fact that the organisers are hired directly by COZZ, not by sectoral-level unions, is one of the key differences with the BOAs. A COZZ official explained that they learned from the BOA, and concluded that their arrangement confers more autonomy on organisers to organise as they see fit, without having to deal with union politics. Indeed, some of the BOA organisers I interviewed encountered a degree of opposition to their ideas and practices within the unions that hired them and could not always concentrate on organising work. Another key difference with the BOAs is the funding of COZZ, which comes mainly from the UNI SCORE department. Some additional resources are provided by other European and international federations with whom COZZ has joint campaigns, notably the European Transport Federation and IndustriALL. Some funding has been received from German foundations and also from the EU (not for organising, but for training, for example). As the interviewed official explains: campaigns are a partnership of three: a federation usually provides funding, a partner union (affiliate of the federation) provides commitment and expertise on the sector, and COZZ organisers do the organising work. As a side goal, unions who work with COZZ obtain expertise (training) in organising. At this point a few unions in the region have already hired organisers for themselves, although still with the financial support of some European-level federations.

Institutional continuity and the development of a subculture of organising

While the idea of an organising academy was being developed and promoted by a small group of Nordic and Baltic activists, the BOA gradually evolved into a project-based organisation with its own distinct identity and strategy, and members reliant on it. The BOA’s activities were started in Estonia, but later expanded to Latvia and Lithuania. The previous Estonian organiser became the coordinator for the Baltic states. Although some Estonian unionists I interviewed found the BOA’s organising approach unsuitable for Estonia, especially seeing it as too confrontational, and some unions exited the Academy after a few years, it was clear, based on the interviews with organisers and some union officials, that a group of organising-minded unionists was formed who propagated the approach and tried to secure further funding: ‘Well, in my opinion, a normal active trade union is an organising union’ (interview with BOA lead organiser, 2014).

The initiation and development of the Alliance also drew on the culture of organising already developed in several Baltic unions. Interviews with BOA 2.0 officials indicated that through the variety of training and other socialisation activities, whether part of the previous BOA or just participating in some of their training courses, unionists had internalised organising ideas or just found them intriguing and wanted to implement them in their unions, especially as they saw that previous organising campaigns had brought new members. BOA 2.0 provided a more secure organisational form for continuing organising activities. Although currently it is not realising its potential, as few organising activities are going on, one official stated that if Nordic unions would provide funds to hire organisers, they have everything ready – documents, strategies, visions and so on – to launch campaigns (interview with BOA 2.0 official #1, 2023). Baltic unionists argued that they have continued their cooperation in the form of several informational meetings per month, even though currently there are no organising campaigns. One of the interviewees (official #1, 2023) said that as there are already quite a few trained organisers in the Baltic states, if Nordic unions accepted them, their union would offer the job to them straight away. Interviewed Baltic unionists seemed optimistic about the potential for further cooperation and organising work, as long as the above-mentioned problems were overcome.

Organising unions in Central and Eastern Europe now network with each other quite well. Belonging to this network also enhances the chances of a union becoming familiar with and being socialised into trying out organising. At the European level unions cooperate mainly on developing policy documents, for example, but in some sectors good organising practices are occasionally shared. BOA 2.0 and COZZ have also conducted joint training courses. Furthermore, several previous organisers are currently in leading positions in sectoral or national union federations. This is another means by which ideas on organising are becoming more institutionalised in the Baltic states. Baltic unionists related to BOA 2.0 also train their shop stewards in some organising principles (although not as thoroughly), but their union activities involve extra work without pay and they simply do not have enough time to engage with organising properly.

Concerning COZZ, in 2023 they had around 30 organisers on their payroll, located in Poland, Czechia and Hungary and their campaigns have been conducted in a variety of areas, including the care sector and in the graphical and packaging sector. A COZZ official (interview, 2023) explained that a culture of organising is slowly spreading in the Visegrád region:

[Some] unions [are] making a choice to hire an organiser, [and there are] unions that include organising as part of [their] planning and work schedule. . . . I heard one [union] president in the Czech Republic recently say that ‘we cannot separate organising from bargaining’. This is something that is very core to our model . . . these are the signs I see that we have ‘brought the change that we wanted’. . . . I personally keep meeting people I helped to organise years ago. [it’s good to see] how they have grown [regarding their] understanding of bargaining, understanding of power. So this has a multiplying effect, that if they are so conscious of what organising does that people they work with or spend time with [are] also going to be somehow affected by this.

Regardless of the obstacles – especially the current lack of funds for BOA 2.0 – the organising structures have been created, the know-how is there and a set of unionists has been trained and socialised into an organising culture. The BOA 2.0 official mentioned that in 2023 there will be a meeting of Nordic and Baltic unions to discuss a potential BOA 3.0. Some funding is apparently already lined up for all three countries.

Organising successes overshadowed by historical legacies and organisational precarity

Little data is available on the effects of the BOA on Latvian and Lithuanian unions. An analysis of BOA progress reports and interview testimony, however, enables us to conclude that the effects for the Estonian companies and sectors affected by organising campaigns included modest union membership gains, collective agreements signed and improvements in working conditions. But organisers also highlighted increased self-confidence among workers in organised companies and enhanced union visibility in the media. Previous research (Kall, 2020) indicates that BOA unions started to cooperate with one another more intensely, both nationally but also transnationally. Unions have also widened their repertoire of stories and ways of thinking about labour relations.

Kall (2020) also highlights that the BOA project and its campaigns have faced a number of obstacles and suffer from various shortcomings. For example, membership level increases have remained modest and company-specific. BOA campaigns have been small-scale, reaching only a fraction of workers and involving only a relatively small group of unions. The campaigns have enabled unions to negotiate only company-level collective agreements, not sectoral ones. This indicates a need, as Simms and Holgate (2010) also highlight, to connect company-level organising campaigns with larger issues of building labour power on a broader base (for example, by constructing working-class identity and cooperating with other social movements). Otherwise, organising victories might remain short term. The need for annual fundraising also introduced considerable precarity, as organisers did not know whether their contracts would be prolonged: ‘You can never plan your life or be certain whether next year you will even have a job’ (interview with a BOA organiser, 2016).

In a similar vein, a BOA 2.0 official stated that their organising approach has been fairly successful in unionising workers, but that it has been hard to keep workers in unions after a campaign ends and that this is something they should pay more attention to: ‘we have to teach them how to be members’ (interview with BOA 2.0 official #2, 2023). She mentioned that this should include bringing about a bigger change in workers’ minds. This takes a long time and should probably be accompanied by wider publicity campaigns. Particularly important factors that hinder organising activities, as highlighted by interviewees, include the lack of collective values and activism among workers (for example, unions are seen rather as service providers), high staff turnover (also among organisers), and a legal environment that does not support union activism. Baltic unionists I interviewed would like to see funders put more trust in them and to be given more freedom to decide their strategies and who they employ.

COZZ has launched a variety of campaigns over the years, based on strategic organising principles. They have focused on companies with crucial influence on the sector and have also contributed to UNI’s global aims. Generally, the focus is on multinational companies, with the initial aim of getting workers to connect with unions, understand the power balance between capital and labour and grasp the idea of workplace democracy. Sometimes these campaigns contain a wider political element, as in the case of the care sector, in which COZZ advocated ‘systemic changes regarding the universal value of care [with a campaign] involving politicians at different levels’ (interview with COZZ official, 2023). The campaigns have also focused on such acute topics as the effects of the war in Ukraine. After five years of organising work, the centre has trained over 3500 workers and organisers (UNI, 2022). A COZZ official (interview) argued that although the increase in union membership has been slow (also because of the COVID-19 pandemic), that is understandable in the Central and Eastern European context, where workers are not as familiar with unions as, for example, their counterparts in the United Kingdom or the United States, but first need to be educated and activated. Representatives of both COZZ and BOA highlighted that the general lack of knowledge in the region about the role of trade unions (in a contemporary democratic society) and low levels of civic activism make organising more time consuming.

Concluding discussion

While the organising model of trade unionism was not widespread in Central and Eastern Europe during the initial decades after the countries of the region regained their independence, even though union density rates continued to fall (OECD/AIAS, 2023), this article presents case studies of three prominent organising initiatives that have wrought a considerable change on the organising front: the BOA, BOA 2.0 and COZZ. The analysis has shown how transnational organising has become institutionalised in the region and what outcomes this has brought with it. This represents a contribution to the literature on organising in Central and Eastern Europe, which to date has paid little attention to the transnational dimension. Taking a comparative approach, some generalisations for the region are in order. The article’s starting point was that organising in the region faces a number of cultural and institutional barriers, but that European integration has helped to overcome them by facilitating the development of structures of cooperation and idea exchange between Central and Eastern European and western European unions. It has also given the latter a motivation to fund organising in the region, not least to protect their own labour markets.

Based on an analysis of the three cases I argue that the international union networks in which organising ideas have spread have played an important role in the development of transnational organising in the region. In addition to the above-mentioned boost provided by European integration and associated cooperation structures, it has been driven by Central and Eastern European unions’ lack of resources and weakness. These initiatives were launched by a few union activists who had familiarised themselves with organising ideas through international union networks and contacts with organising unions. They saw organising as a way to overcome the precarious position of Central and Eastern European unions, which had already tried a variety of ways to improve their situation but still kept losing members. Organising (especially hiring organisers) is quite resource-intensive and these advocates managed to lobby for funding and to set up organisations to organise training and campaigning using funds provided by foreign unions or international union federations. They were also able to fund some training with EU grants. European integration made it easier to obtain foreign funding, as the weakness of Central and Eastern European unions was also seen as a substantial problem for western European labour markets and organising in the region has been framed as a common good.

Slowly but surely, organising model principles have become better known among trade unions in the countries in which these initiatives have been operating and even beyond, through union networks, training courses and campaigns. These initiatives are not the only ones through which (transnational) organising has been practised in the region, but they are the widest-reaching. In 2015, for example, the Constituent Congress of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria launched a training programme on organising and campaigning in cooperation with the Swiss union Unia (Tomev, 2017).

Organising has yielded some promising results, and an organising subculture, with specific norms and practices, has developed among the unions engaged with the BOAs, COZZ and even beyond. Some unions have managed successful campaigns, leading to membership increases and the signing of collective agreements. This has motivated them to go further. Other unions, even though their results have not been so promising, still consider organising better than just continuing in the old ways. As union growth is slow even for those unions that have been implementing the model for years, Central and Eastern European unions are also still reliant on transnational support for hiring organisers and conducting campaigns. Thus, organising with a transnational dimension has gradually become institutionalised in the region. The union revitalisation literature has generally considered organising and international cooperation as two distinct strategies for unions. This study has shown that they can also be combined into a single coherent strategy.

Dependence on foreign funding, however, brings its own set of challenges. Notably, unions lose part of their autonomy and have to answer to funders. They lack a permanent, sustainable stream of funding and need constantly to be on the lookout for ways of securing future funding. This is especially notable in the case of BOA 2.0 where the clash of ideas between Nordic and Baltic unionists concerning suitable organisers, organising practices and outcomes produced a situation in which, currently, little organising is being done, although the willingness and structures are there on the part of some Baltic unions. Similar issues affected the initial BOA, as some sectoral unions saw organising differently from the BOA core team (and even doubted its suitability in the Baltic context). Some even exited the BOA. This indicates, as previous studies have emphasised (for example, Krzywdzinski, 2010) that organising in the region is to some extent in competition with other union strategies and identities. Furthermore, the annual funding process to which the BOAs were subject rendered the whole approach quite precarious. COZZ’s model is more resilient, as they (not union federations) hire the organisers, they are more insulated from local union politics, and funding is provided mainly on a continuous and reliable basis. This indicates that transnational organising can overcome some of its shortcomings when international unions are willing to set up more permanent funding streams.

At a macro level, the transnational organising campaigns studied here have not produced an increase in unionisation. In Estonia, where BOA campaigns were first launched in 2012, union density has even slightly decreased, falling from 7 per cent in 2011 to 4–6 per cent in 2019. A similar tendency characterises other Baltic and Visegrád countries (OECD/AIAS, 2023). It is well documented that implementing organising campaigns is difficult and that often they do not produce fundamental changes at macro level (for example, Simms et al., 2013). But the CEE context adds another layer of complication. Even if the precarity of funding could be overcome, the weak democratic union culture in these countries means that workers are often undecided about unions and organisers first need to devote time to inculcating a better understanding of trade union potential. Furthermore, as civic engagement is generally low in the region (for example, Pop-Eleches and Tucker, 2013), finding union activists and mobilising workers requires extra effort. This seems to indicate that wider awareness-raising campaigns are needed to accompany a company and sectoral approach to organising.

Nevertheless, the organising model of trade unionism, coupled with transnational support, still seems a more effective and sustainable strategy than some more traditional ones, such as servicing-based recruitment or a focus on policy-making processes. Organising campaigns involve paid organisers whose job is to empower workers. These campaigns benefit from the expertise of activists and officials operating at different levels (company, sector, EU), and can often mobilise broad trade union support and there is generally more funding to devote to various activities. Dominant union strategies in Central and Eastern Europe, such as participating in policy-making processes and trying to establish institutional safeguards, depend more on the external environment. If it becomes hostile, the downside for trade unions can be substantial, as happened during the 2008–2009 crisis (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017). This does not mean that centralised organising campaigns are the only viable way of improving the position of trade unions in the region, but they do seem to be a key component in successful union action in some sectors. Having more (active) members generally translates into increased power resources and union legitimacy. Combined with sectoral, national and/or EU-level action this can bring about tangible change on a large scale. Although previous research has emphasised that organising is not widespread in the region (Bernaciak and Trif, 2023), there are clear signs that it is becoming institutionalised, albeit specifically in tandem with a transnational dimension.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers and the editors for their constructive and helpful feedback. It considerably helped to shape and improve the article.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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