The world of labour has many complex questions for social researchers. How persistent is the mass unemployment developed during the "economic transition"? Whether trade unions can play a role in forming the economic policy? What is the role of women labour in catching-up? Whether physical work will lose its relevance and so the traditional contradiction between capital and labour? Questions of popular interest but not properly answered from a scientific point of view can be listed for long. The current issue of Eszmélet cannot promise that its articles will answer the above questions thoroughly but at least will show reference points and the main lines of research that can lead to possible answers.

Table of contents

1. Thoma László, Simon János, Bayer József, Szöllősi Istvánné, Ágh Attila, Szoboszlai György, Krausz Tamás, Wiener György : Trade unions and politics
2. Göran Therborn : Patterns and meaning of unemployment
3. Rainer Deppe, Melanie Tatur : Trade unions and system change in Poland and Hungary
4. Saskia Sassen : Migration in the world economy
5. Competition and change
6. Matheika Zoltán : On the social determination of the labour process
7. Erdősné dr. Simon Zsuzsa : Labour legislation in Hungary
8. Hovorka János : Employee share ownership
9. Trautmann László, Sugár András : The misterious sector
10. Kapitány Ágnes, Kapitány Gábor : On the intellectual mode of production
11. Tabák Lajos : On the way of photos (self-portrait)
12. Andor László : Labor politics – past, present and future – interview with Tony Benn
13. Tony Benn : A bill for the Commonwealth of Europe
14. Stephanie Seguino : Trade secrets: sexism and export-led growth in South-Korea
15. Czéh Zoltán : The Gulag from en economic point of view