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In this issue we have replaced our notes on current personnel practice in a particular firm or industry with some information on the working of the European Communities. These notes have kindly been supplied by Dr L Crinjs, Head of Social Research and Policy, Directorate General of Social Affairs, Commission of the European Communities, Brussels and by the EEC.

The results of the elections of July 2, 2000 that defeated the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) for the first time in history may open a new stage in the relations between trade unions and a state ridden with uncertainties. This is evidenced by the behavior of some of the main trade union leaders in Mexico after July 2: erratic behavior; attempts at alliances that would have been unthinkable in the past; and flirting with the presidency. It is the leadership, the strength of the confederations, which is at stake. The powerful may weaken and those who have been marginalized may enter the fray. Other actors, the workers, however, have remained in the background for years. Attention must be paid to them. For the workers, since the early 1980s, neoliberalism has meant reductions in wages and contract benefits, large personnel cut-backs, the disarticulation of the “old working class,” and the emergence of a “new working class” in the maquila. In other words, labor has been restructured in part through modernizing production.

This paper aims to provide an overview of changes in the context of the Swedish public sector.

It reviews the main literature on the topic and relevant policy texts.

In short, even though the last decade and a half has been a most turbulent period in the history of the Swedish public sector, with its peak in two great strikes, the framework has remained substantially intact. Swedish path dependency has been so strong that the system has largely survived; it has moved towards “organized decentralization”, but it has not dissolved. It is probable that the end of that move has not yet been seen; the Swedish system is still transforming.

It is a general overview of key developments.

It is relevant for a discussion of the general trends and dynamic of public sector industrial relations in Sweden.

This article manages to take an overview and point to the uncertain development of a new market approach.

In resolving the social and economic problems within the global dimension, countries try to realize social policies according to ILO norms, because nowadays many factors influence the future of the labour movement. Turkey became a member of ILO in 1932 and approved 40 conventions of this organization. Despite the approved conventions, the Turkish social security system has still some problems. Besides that, the tourism sector plays a very important economic role for the Turkish economy. In this research, we tried to carry out the application of ILO norms in the Turkish tourism sector, because the norms are important steps to be realized in the course of E. U. membership for Turkey. This work was supported by the Research Fund of the Istanbul University. Project Number: 1605/30042001.

This paper aims to provide a Norwegian perspective of how trade unions in the former Soviet block countries have dealt with the challenges of the post‐communist period and how the European trade union movement has attempted to assist them as they have adjusted to representing and protecting the interests of workers in a market economy.

This paper considers the point that the experiences of trade union development in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe should not be assumed to have followed some monolithic pattern.

Each of the individual states experienced challenges that were unique to them and which reflected the economic, geographical and social situation they found themselves in when they took the “leap in the dark” at the end of the 1990s. The speed at which they made the transition to a market economy was also quite diverse with some countries such a Czech Republic and Hungary making progress quickly whilst others, for understandable reasons, were much slower off the mark.

One of the main thrusts of this paper is the diversity of experience amongst the former Soviet block countries both prior to and after the 1989 changes. The paper invites researchers to explore this diversity further in terms of causality and the impact of this diversity on the democratisation process of Central and Eastern European Countries.

Provides a timely reminder of the dangers of perceiving trade unions in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe as replicas of their counterparts in the West. The picture he paints of the diversity of the region, the weakness of national trade union headquarters starved of funds to pursue industrial objectives by local trade union organisations who have a “holiday club” mentality and retain the bulk of the income for social and welfare benefits reminds us of the extreme difficulties that face trade unions in CEE countries as the strive to build strong and effective organisations capable of challenging multinational conglomerates.

ON PRESENTING the Crowther Report the Minister invited the expression of views on its proposals. In response to this invitation the Industrial Education and Training Committee of the British Employers' Confederation set up a special sub‐committee to study the report in detail. The views of this sub‐committee, subsequently approved by the Council of the Confederation, have been submitted to the Minister and were published recently.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical examination of industrial relations in Denmark.

The approach is based upon available data and a mixture of Marxist theory and systems theory. The theoretical position is discussed in relation to the academic discourses on the main characteristics of Danish industrial relations and provides a review of the foundation and historical development of the Danish system.

From this basis, it is analysed how the stagnation or decline has taken place in recent years regarding representation of workers’ interest as well as the ability of the Danish system to maintain its key importance when challenged by decentralisation, decreasing union affiliation rates, cuts in unemployment insurance and social dumping due to labour migration.

It is an original paper which offers a critical analysis of the institutional decline and increasing inequality that are the result of the liberalist political-economic hegemony.

This paper aims to examine the significance of information communication technology (ICT) for Balkan labour. Drawing on the heuristic of “distributed discourse”, this paper aims to explore virtual forms of communication and interaction. The paper aims to examine the privileged role of ICT in the: formation of autonomous trade union structures and channels of communication; evasion of the territorial structures of the nation‐state and the construction of virtual communities of international labour solidarity; and authoritative transmission of models of industrial relations practice and of capitalist modernity in virtual space.

The authors conducted in‐depth interviews, followed up by further discussions, with officials and researchers from unions in the Balkan region. IR academics in Serbia and Montenegro were also consulted, as were union web sites and those of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia, Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions of Serbia. The purpose of the dialogue was to build an empirically grounded framework for understanding the limits and possibilities presented by the new distributed communications technologies of the internet for labour in the era of globalisation. This article provides qualitative data to allow reflection on the possibilities inherent in ICT for the reinvigoration of trade unionism and labour mobilisation in this era of rampant neoliberalism, particularly in the area of trade union democratisation and accountability.

The article finds that key figures within the Balkan labour movement are conversant with the potential of ICTs. It is also apparent that the construction of cyber‐unionism at the official level is subject to the authoritative force of neo‐liberal imperial governance. However, this is a regime of policing that is indexed and auditable through the very distributed communication technologies which can affect forms of meta‐governance beyond the control of institutions.

The findings, based on the interrogation of qualitative data are provisional hypotheses and an invitation to further research on the space‐time dimensions of trade unionism in the age of globalisation.

This paper highlights the situated character of ICT utilisation. While ICTs can be implicated in the reproduction of extant organisational forms and politics, this article provides the international labour movement with a viewpoint from which to build ICT strategies and appropriate organisational structures that recognise the limitations of centralised representation and control.

This paper represents fresh and contemporary data on the use of the internet by Balkan labour. By interrogating the qualitative data an invitation to further research on the space‐time dimensions of trade unionism in the age of globalisation is presented.