The Transnationalisation of Collective Bargaining

This book analyses the transnationalisation of collective bargaining by European trade unions, presenting key theoretical concepts and debates on the Europeanisation of collective bargaining and social dialogue. The author uses comprehensive empirical evidence to illustrate that trade union strategies can be linked to sector-specific economic, institutional and actorrelated factors. Looking at seven different industrial sectors, the book investigates whether western European trade unions pursue a centralised, vertical approach towards the transnationalisation of collective bargaining policies or embark upon decentralised, horizontal cross-border initiatives. It identifies and operationalises the most important determinants of processes and explores commonly held assumptions about relationships between different forms of trade union-driven transnationalisation. Overall, the study reveals a number of patterns in the variation between countries and sectors, both of the institutions and instruments involved and of the intensity of cross-border coordination.

Vera Glassner is a researcher at the Department of Economic and Organisational Sociology at the University of Linz (Austria). Her research focuses on the Europeanisation of industrial relations. She holds a PhD in sociology and has worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Industrial Sociology at the University of Vienna and as a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels.