Pathways to global employee voice: analysis of three company case studies in the metalworking sector.

Labour needs to adopt a global strategy in order to match the reach of global capital. This paper presents one such strategy – creation of global worker bodies in multinational companies, which take the form of Extended European Works Councils, Global Trade Union Networks, World Union Councils and World Works Councils. This paper is based on data collected for a PhD thesis, which adopts qualitative methodology with a focus on three case studies of multinational companies in the metalworking sector. The paper concludes that global worker bodies tend to merely provide communication, rather more robust forms of employee voice. However, the findings also demonstrate that global worker bodies can have important outcomes for the employees at the national level. They improve worker standards, facilitate social dialogue, initiate best practices transfer and create points of leverage when company is breaching the commitments made in the IFA in countries with weaker national representation structures. This is demonstrated with examples from the US, India, Czech Republic and Argentina. Another key finding is that global worker bodies may dilute EWC rights. Therefore, the development of global worker bodies should not replace the EWCs and should run in parallel with the expansion of the EWCs.