This article examines social dialogue in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
and the three Baltic states. It argues that social dialogue in these countries
does not measure up to the minimum criteria for effectiveness and has failed to
counteract serious reductions in real wages and employment opportunities. It
presents ideas on how to improve the social dialogue and suggests how these
improvements might be initiated. However, many of the proposals face
difficulties because of the weak organizational capacities of the state and
especially of the social partners. It is therefore unlikely that these countries
will be capable of substantially improving the social dialogue using their own
resources; this would require more forceful intervention by the European Union.
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