Barriers to cross border trade union co-operation in Europe: the case of geographical workers

This paper is concerned with exploring the barriers to cross-border trade union cooperation among graphical workers in Europe. Highlighting the increasing globalisation of graphical multinationals, the paper illustrates that graphical unions cannot restrict their activities to developments within national boundaries. As such it highlights some of the obstacles that unions face in attempting to instigate transnational cooperation strategies. These obstacles include: the role of employers, the prevailing practices of the unions, employee reticence, the role of the law and resource constraints. It concludes by stressing the continuing need to strengthen cross-border trade union networks with the ability to impose effective sanctions against the unbridled growth of multinational power.