CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

Chapter 2
Transnational collective bargaining
at company level:
Historical developments
Isabel da Costa 1 and Udo Rehfeldt 2
Introduction
he internationalization of production and of the exchange of
Tgoods and services has undergone different cycles of intensification
and transformation, the last one being generally referred to as globalization.
For the management of multinational enterprises (MNEs) the
move towards internationalization entails problems of industrial organization
and governance; for the labour movement, too, it represents a serious
challenge, which it has tried to address almost from its inception.
From the creation of the First International — the International Workingmen’s
Association in 1864 — to the founding of the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Vienna in November 2006, the
internationalization of labour has been a complex task facing — and
often overcoming — many difficulties. 3 43
1
Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Economie (IDHE) — Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, (CNRS), Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (France).
2
Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), Noisy-le-Grand (France).
3
This chapter — particularly the last section on transnational collective bargaining in the automotive
sector — draws on extensive field research coducted by the authors over two decades, on the topic of
transnationalization of industrial relations. An analytical report of their findings can be found in da Costa
and Rehfeldt (2006a).