ABSTRACT
At first sight, international collective bargaining seems to be the natural next step after national level bargaining. Within most developed countries, historically, collective bargaining developed rapidly from local to national level. As the labour market moved from local to national, some degree of national level labour relations supplemented, and sometimes superseded, existing local labour relations. The case is well documented. In the case of the USA (Ulman 1955) the national union took over the local union, even though collective bargaining remained local, albeit under the auspices of the national union. It therefore appeared perfectly logical that the same process that had occurred within nations would take place internationally superseding the national one. As capital becomes more and more international and mobile, as financial markets globally never close, it seems only natural for organised labour to adjust and extend to the international scene. It also seems vital for labour to seek a new negotiating position vis-à-vis its traditional employer opponent when the latter is quickly achieving a global dimension under many guises – notably, but not exclusively in the shape of the multinational corporation (MNC). Indeed, it may sometimes appear to national labour movements to be a case of ‘hanging together or hanging separately’. Nevertheless, in practice, things are far more complex and far from easy. While internationalisation of capital seems a natural desire for employers, it does not have the same appeal for labour (Lecher and Platzer 1988), especially in the case of collective bargaining. We shall review the various issues involved before gauging the few tangible results attained so far.
