Abstract
Minimum wages have declined sharply in all countries of Central and Eastern Europe since 1989, to well below average wages and to below most concepts of subsistence income. The general situation was reviewed in "The Minimum Wage in Central and Eastern Europe: Slippage of the Anchor" by Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead (ILO-CEET Reports No.1, 1993).
The report "Minimum Wages in Russia" by Tatyana Chetvernina shows how the minimum wage in the Russian Federation has fallen well below any conceivable definition of the poverty line. It proposes that for such a vast country, with considerable variations in prices and living standards between regions, a regionalised approach to establish negotiated minimum wages would be preferable to, or complement the establishment of a single rate for the whole country. One of the biggest problems is the discrepancy in average earnings between the privatised and the public service sectors in the country. It has been a feature of the Russian labour market that wages in the public "budgetary" sector have lagged well behind the average in the rest of the economy, and the minimum wage has not been useful in protecting the living standards of many groups in public services.
The report "Minimum Wages in the Czech Republic: Employment Effects in the Transformation Period" describes the trends in the minimum and average wages in the Czech Republic, but concentrates mostly on an assessment of the possible effects of an increase in the minimum wage in January 1992 on wages and employment. Perhaps it was not surprising that the modest increase had not appreciable effects; what was perhaps more surprising was that the low minimum wage was left unchanged throughout the prolonged period covered by the analysis. Although the minimum wage in the Czech Republic covered only a very small proportion of the national workforce, the number in a few sectors were more substantial.
Table of Contents
Preface
Minimum Wages in Russia; Fantasy Chasing Fact
Minimum Wages in the Czech Republic; Employment Effects in the Transformation Period
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