ABSTRACT
The investments of foreign companies in Central and Eastern Europe encounter formal and informal conditions of industrial relations, which are then retained or changed in the further course of development. This chapter concerns the general significance of investments by foreign – particularly German – companies in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In Poland, the collective bargaining is usually organized on the site/company level, whereas the supra-company framework agreement on employment conditions governs general conditions. The coverage rate of the collective bargaining amounts to 40 per cent. The chapter presents commonalities and differences among the industrial relations in the three host countries of the investments, since their institutional circumstances define framework conditions on which the West European companies make their investments. The introduction of so-called works councils on the site level in addition to trade union representatives on the site/company level could be of great importance for the West European.
