It was a hot day in Kherson, Ukraine, and the group of workers stood silent in the shadow of
the trees in front of the local council's palace. As I approached them, only one person was
talking in the group, addressing the workers, a tall man in a white shirt wearing
sunglasses.'Let's follow the signal', he said,'we have to move all at once'. When the signal
came, the workers moved, following the man in the white shirt to block the boulevard in front
of the city council. They formed a circle of people walking over the zebra crossings …

Mihai Varga's Striking with tied hands presents intriguing research on union action in
Eastern Europe. The specific approach is to study the dynamics of contestation at plant level.
While the region is often seen to suffer from a consistent state of “labour weakness,” Varga
shows that when the focus is shifted away from the central organizations, windows of
opportunity and pockets of contestation can be discerned even given the prevailing
undeniably difficult conditions. Varga considers eight case studies from the Romanian steel …