When the EU welcomed in 10 new countries in 2004, many still rebounding from years of Soviet rule behind the Iron Curtain, it unknowingly set two different labor markets on a crash course toward conflict. In the West are established unions that demand high wages through collective bargaining agreements. In the East are workers–some organized, some not–who are willing to provide services for a fraction of the wages their Western counterparts demand.
To save money, companies began to migrate facilities to the Eastern member states and import cheaper labor from these regions. This angered the unions, which tried to stop
