Labour Management in Belarus: Transcendent Retrogression

Abstract

Labour management practices at enterprise level in Belarus are more negative for workers than those under the Soviet system. Welfare has largely disappeared, as has Soviet-style informal bargaining; wage payment may be in kind; training is minimal; job insecurity is extreme and trade unions perform a corporatist role. Thus, as Burawoy argued, ‘involutionary retrogression’ has indeed taken place, but in what may be denominated a ‘transcendent’ form.