ABSTRACT
Transnational companies are one of the key forces driving forward the process of European economic integration, in which the creation of the Single European Market was a significant step. In the sphere of industrial relations, considerable debate and speculation has surrounded the framework of European industrial relations that might accompany economic integration. Will it be a framework characterised by competition for investment and jobs in which the winners are those nations and regions with the lowest levels of labour protection and costs? Or will it be a framework characterised by the building of new institutions at European level, of which the European works councils (EWCs) established in transnational companies, both prior to and in response to the EWC Directive, are a harbinger? Here too the decisions and actions of transnational companies will be important.
