What world of work in new EU member states?
The years of transition in Central and Eastern Europe brought with them the unprecedented - in these societies - phenomenon of restructuring with dismissals and growing unemployment. Moreover with the emergence and development of the private sector, new enterprises started to leave former corporate models behind to adopt new forms of employment and working conditions arrangements to better adapt to the newly competitive environment. Further many of these countries have now joined the European Union and have started to progressively harmonize their labour laws to community legislation, something that should accelerate their economic and social catching-up process while profoundly influencing their World of work. However there is no much evidence collected so far an these countries' enterprise practices in terms of labour contracts, working time, and other working conditions something that this articles proposes to investigate more in depth. At enterprise level are the conditions at work following similar patterns in new EU member states? Have they started converging in a significant way towards EU standards? Or are they already following diverging trends in certain areas? What could be said about the general direction of the World of work in the EU 25?