Transnational company policy and coordination of collective bargaining - new challenges and roles for European industry federations

This article is based on a comprehensive investigation of the organization and policies of all 12 European industry federations (EIFs) since the beginning of the 1990s. The focus in the present analysis lies on the evolution of the tasks, governance capacity and functions of the EIFs in the areas of company policy and collective bargaining — areas which traditionally belong to the ‘core business’ of the national-level trade unions. The empirical analysis demonstrates that, since the early 1990s, the European industry federations have — despite a longstanding lack of resources — proven able to develop from providing forums for the exchange of information to becoming platforms for the definition of binding guidelines and minimum standards. This expansion of their functional competence, which reflects the growing willingness of their national affiliates to be drawn into and committed by transnational coordination processes, has also led to more differentiated organizational and political structures within the European federations.