ABSTRACT
Multinational companies (MNCs) are important economic actors in developed countries and even more so in developing markets, where they provide the capital and technologies necessary for modernizing old assets and contribute to the development of particular sectors or types of economic activity. They also have a destructive potential however, especially with regard to employment and working conditions. First, within the value chain of a large corporation, production and service work are no longer bound to a single locality; rather they can easily be shifted between sites. Consequently, production relocations carry the threat of inducing job losses at traditional industrial locations. Second, interplant rivalry often leads to the lowering of employment standards; this may be a result of unilateral management decisions, but it can also be a consequence of concession bargaining, whereby workers accept longer working hours, an unsafe working environment or lower pay in order to make their site competitive and attract new production.
