Attacks upon the Romanian Welfare State and the Trade Union Decline

Abstract

The global economic crisis has dramatically affected the Romanian economy and consequently the Romanian labour market. The Romanian right-wing government tackled these challenges by cutting 25% of the public sector salaries and introducing new laws that radically changed the labour rights. Therefore, the economic crisis and the global economic competition are causes and justifications for the implementation of the new policies that gave less social rights to the employees and made them less protected by unions. In a broader perspective, the welfare state regime became more liberal with a lower level of decomodification.

Keywords

• welfare state
• industrial relations
• decomodification
• economic crisis
• globalization