News agency Reuter writes that with employment rates at record highs, and workers demanding wages closer to western levels, the cheap-labour model in CEE-countries that has driven growth since the fall of communism is on the way out, thanks to effective trade union action. Currently wages are rising faster than in Western Europe, but the disparity is still substantial, according to the trade unions. Manufacturers share less of their income with workers in Central and Eastern Europe than they do in Western Europe. In the EU, wages on average accounts for 47.5% of economic output, according to Eurostat - but while that figure reaches 50.9% in Germany it drops to just 40.4% in the Czech Republic.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-easteurope-economy-analysis ...
Wage data: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.
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