Multinational Companies and the Future of Collective Bargaining: A Review of the Research Issues

Growing European economic integration has encouraged restructuring within multinational companies (MNCs), involving the development of organization-based employment systems, changing forms of management control and a shift in bargaining power. These developments are promoting the decentralization of collective bargaining and challenging established structures of multi-employer bargaining. How far MNCs withdraw from multi-employer bargaining will however be shaped by the different national industrial relations systems. Future research should examine the involvement of MNCs in national systems of multi-employer bargaining and the organizational, procedural and substantive aspects of their industrial relations activities at European level. Such a programme of cross-national research raises important issues of funding and collaborative organization.