Franchizing Frenchness: What Social Models Do French-dominated Multinational Companies Bring to Hungary?

This paper applies an actor-oriented approach to examine industrial relations at French-based companies operating in the service sector in Hungary. The service sector is under-researched despite the fact that in recent years there has been a remarkable shift in the proportional distribution of foreign direct investment inflows: more than half of the total capital invested in Hungary has flowed into services. The analysis focuses almost exclusively on how labor relations are explained by the employees and their representatives, which resonates with the literature that proposes to investigate the chances for a revitalized trade union movement in post-socialist Europe. The paper examines five aspects of labor relations: 1) legacy effect: the relevance of trade unions that existed before transition; 2) double representation effect: the role of local work councils in addition to trade unions; 3) European effect: the importance of European Works Councils in constructing a more employee-friendly social environment within firms; 4) sectoral effect: cooperation between local and sectoral trade unions in the contexts of traditionally local-based collective agreements and contemporary EU initiatives; 5) French effect: employee representatives’ perceptions of local managers with special regard to their Frenchness.