Trade union project-based revitalization strategies in Central and Eastern Europe : the case of Slovenia and Estonia

Samaluk, Barbara (author), Kall, Kairit (author)

This article studies trade union revitalization within broader trends of projectification that marks a shift towards project work and its temporary organization. It accordingly compares instances of project-based organizational restructuring in post-crisis Estonia and Slovenia in order to identify their drivers, power resources employed and their outcomes and wider impact. In both countries, project-based organizational restructuring was driven by proactive activists capable of innovatively utilizing available power resources and new opportunity structures that had opened up with EU integration. While Slovenian unions utilized a more diverse set of power resources and revitalization strategies, activists in both countries stimulated trade union project-based organizational restructuring in order to initiate and sustain their main, context specific, revitalization strategies. Findings also show that project-based organizational restructuring can be an interim phase for unions to increase their resources and use them to turn their revitalization strategies into more permanent ones.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Estonia, Slovenia, trade union revitalization, education, project-based organizational restructuring, projectification, power resources
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 7-24
• Numbering: Vol. 29, iss. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-148529
• UDC: 37.015.4
• ISSN on article: 1461-7129
• DOI: 10.1177/09596801221118852
• COBISS.SI-ID: 162294787
• Publication date in RUL: 25.08.2023

SAMALUK, Barbara and KALL, Kairit, 2023, Trade union project-based revitalization strategies in Central and Eastern Europe : the case of Slovenia and Estonia. European journal of industrial relations [online]. 2023. Vol. 29, no. 1, p. 7–24. [Accessed 11 April 2025]. DOI 10.1177/09596801221118852. Retrieved from: https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?lang=eng&id=148529

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: European journal of industrial relations
• Publisher: SAGE
• ISSN: 1461-7129
• COBISS.SI-ID: 8512849

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: sindikati, izobraževanje, organizacijska rekonstrukcija, projektifikacija

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: European Trade Union Institute
• Name: Beyond the crisis: innovative practices within CEE trade union movements

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Estonia, Ministry of Education and Research
• Name: Alternatives at Work and Work Organisation: Flexible Postsocialist Societies