CELSI managing director Marta Kahancova and scientific director Martin Kahanec presented at the joint symposium of University of California Berkeley and the Central European University Budapest, titled "Borders, Borderlands, and Migration".

Marta Kahancova talks on CEE trade unions seizing opportunities from labour-related migration and labour shortages in the region.

Her key findings are that migration-induced labour shortages strengthen the structural resources of trade unions in CEE countries. However, whether unions were able to utilize this opportunity is conditioned by their organizational capacities and the supporting institutional environment. "While in the pre-crisis years union action helped stabilizing public healthcare bargaining institutions in Slovakia using the migration argument, in recent years union efforts turned away to legal solutions that crowd out bargaining", emphasized Kahancova. "Strengthened structural resources remain important in unions' efforts to shape legislation on healthcare working conditions," she added.