Labor in state-socialist Europe, 1945-1989 : contributions to a history of work / edited by Marsha Siefert.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Siefert, Marsha, 1949- editor.

Series:

Work and Labor – Transdisciplinary Studies for the 21st Century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century.

Labor.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 466 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Budapest, Hungary ; New York, New York : Central European University Press, [2020]

Summary:

Labor regimes under communism in East-Central Europe were complex, shifting, and ambiguous. This collection of sixteen essays offers new conceptual and empirical ways to understand their history from the end of World War II to 1989, and to think about how their experiences relate to debates about labor history, both European and global. The authors reconsider the history of state socialism by re-examining the policies and problems of communist regimes and recovering the voices of the workers who built them. The contributors look at work and workers in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. They explore the often contentious relationship between politics and labor policy, dealing with diverse topics including workers’ safety and risks; labor rights and protests; working women’s politics and professions; migrant workers and social welfare; attempts to control workers’ behavior and stem unemployment; and cases of incomplete, compromised, or even abandoned processes of proletarianization. Workers are presented as active agents in resisting and supporting changes in labor policies, in choosing allegiances, and in defining the very nature of work.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Tables and Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction. Labor in State-Socialist Europe since 1945: Toward an Inclusive History of Work

PART I: FINDING WORK, MAKING WORKERS

Unemployment in State Socialism: An Insight into the Understanding of Work in 1950s Poland

The Impossibility of Being Planned: Slackers and Stakhanovites in Early Socialist Romania

Finding Workers to Build Socialism: Recruiting for the Steel Factories in Bulgaria and Albania

“Inappropriate Behavior”: Labor Control and the Polish, Cuban, and Vietnamese Workers in Czechoslovakia

PART II WORKERS, RIGHTS, AND DISCIPLINE

Dishonest Saleswomen: On Gendered Politics of Shame and Blame in Polish State-Socialist Trade

Labor Discipline in Self-Managed Socialism: The Yugoslav Automotive Industry, 1965–1985

“This Workers’ Hostel Lost Almost Every Bit of Added Value It Had”: Workers’ Hostels, Social Rights, and Legitimization in Hungary and the German Democratic Republic

Discussing Women’s Double and Triple Burden in Socialist Yugoslavia: Women Working in the Garment Industry

PART III: WORKERS, SAFETY, AND RISK

Governing the State of Emergency: Large Industrial Accidents in Communist East Germany

Labor’s Risks: Work Accidents, the Industrial Wage Relation, and Social Insurance in Socialist Romania

Nuclear Yutopia: The Outcome of the First Nuclear Accident in Yugoslavia, 1958

PART IV: WORKERS, PROTEST, AND REFORM

Strikes in Czechoslovakia, 1945–1968: Systems Analysis and the Debate over the Causes of the Collapse of State Socialism

“It Shall Not Be a Written Gift, but a Lived Reality”: Equal Pay, Women’s Work, and the Politics of Labor in State-Socialist Hungary, Late 1960s to Late 1970s

Labor Protest in the Italian-Yugoslav Border Region During the Cold War: Action, Control, Legitimacy, Self- Management

When Workers’ Self-Management Met Neoliberalism: Positive Perceptions of Market Reforms among Blue-Collar Workers in Late Yugoslav Socialism

PART V: TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE HISTORY OF WORK

Not Just Socialist Miners, but Miners of the World: Internationalism, Global Trends, and Romanian Coal Workers

List of Contributors

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9789633863381

9633863384

OCLC:

1338019942