ABSTRACT
In the mid-1970s multinational enterprises accounted for one-fifth of the world's output and their production was growing at the rate of 10-12 per cent per annum nearly twice that of the growth of world output. Having delineated some of the factors which account for the emergence and expansion of MNEs, the people may now consider their specific relationship to, and impact on, industrial relations in particular the ways in which they may impinge on trade union and worker interests. The greater legal prescription of industrial relations in Germany (and to a lesser extent in France) therefore means that in some ways MNEs may constitute less distinctive problems to unions in those countries than in, say, Britain despite the fact that their union membership densities are relatively lower. Trade unions have initiated a number of responses within their collective bargaining activities in order to countervail the organisational structure and activities of MNEs and redress their own sense of power loss.
