ABSTRACT
Globalization is rightly regarded as a threat to the labour movements of developed economies in at least three senses. First, the transfer of jobs to low-wage economies overseas threatens to erode union membership (Jacoby, 1995: 12). Second, the exposure of domestic markets to foreign competition threatens to undermine the rent-seeking behaviour of unions (Brown, 2000: 313). And, third, the growth of regime competition between nation-states seeking inward investment threatens the national industrial relations settlement, which in many countries has afforded unions influence over economic and social policy (Hyman, 1997; Streeck, 1991). However, globalization may also present opportunities to trade unions and the chance to develop new union forms, access new resources and develop a new agenda, aimed at regulating the international economy. Globalization is not a single, determinate process, therefore, but embraces a range of developments, some of which are inimical to the interests of trade unions and their members and some of which may prove relatively benign (Murray et al., 2000; Waddington, 1999).
