ABSTRACT
The increasing globalization of production raises potentially profound issues for workers and trade unions. At both company and workplace level managers are translating the pressures of globalization into programmes aimed at changing terms and conditions, industrial relations and work organization. When confronted by these changes and the underlying rapid increases in trade and technological change, traditional institutions such as national governments and trade unions often appear unable to influence events. For workers increasingly concerned over their incomes and job security, the central issue is to what extent globalization is exerting a downward pressure on their terms and conditions in what has been termed ‘a race to the bottom’ (Lee, 1996, 1997). Although the International Labour Organization generally takes a positive view of globalization as promoting efficiency and enabling high productivity, high wage jobs (ILO, 1998), as yet it is difficult to assess whether a ‘race to the bottom’ is occurring and there have been calls for more empirical evidence on changing working conditions (Lee, 1997: 182). For trade unions seeking to represent these workers, the challenge is to maintain or establish effective industrial relations structures to influence increasingly global companies. Trade unions also face the prospect of negotiating the introduction of new working methods as globalization also involves the potential for an increased rate of transfer of the most productive forms of working.
