vastly dissimilar to those elsewhere and, perhaps most important, that the unions do indeed guard the worker's interest. The view about workers' rights and unions' role in communist countries, that is prevalent outside, can obviously not be squared with this. At the same time, the author cites several instances in which the union committees were far from keen or alert in defending the workers and this is ascribed to either the weakness of the unions concerned or their preoccupation with production targets and wage bills.
