ABSTRACT
The increase in labour precariousness which has accompanied the global economic and financial crisis is itself part of a longer term historical trend towards the increasing vulnerability of labour. The International Labour Organisation's (ILO) watchdog committee, the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR), has recently expressed concerns over ongoing trends in various member states, not just in Eastern Europe, which have skewed the primary regulatory objectives of labour inspection. Fundamental weaknesses of the neoliberal economic development adopted for the last two decades in the Baltic States have been exposed in recession, which in relative if not absolute terms, has experienced the impact of the crisis in probably the most drastic form in the entire globe. The new European Union (EU) member states therefore represent a paradigmatic case study with respect to the vexed problems of securing decent labour standards which counter labour precarity.
