The continuing advance of globalization, together with deepening European integration, has increased the significance of the transnational level of trade union organization and action. This study offers a comprehensive overview of the development, structure, and policies of global and European trade union federations to serve as a reference work on all the key trade union movements operating globally and in Europe. It presents an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing these organizations and their strategic and policy responses. As a handbook, this volume provides extensive and systematically presented data on transnational sectoral trade union federations. Applying an analogous structure in the presentation of both global and European levels, the study features extensive organizational profiles, portraits, and overviews. This empirical material serves to reveal recent innovations in cross-border policy instruments and strategic approaches since the 1990s. The changing profiles of international trade unions - as measured against a set of functional criteria drawn from political science - and key developments in transnational trade union activity since the start of the new century are also investigated.

Hans-Wolfgang Platzer has been Professor in the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, Germany since 1992. He holds the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration, ad personam and is Director of the European and Global Industrial Relations Research Group at the University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, Germany. Torsten Müller is a member of the European and Global Industrial Relations research group at the University of Applied Sciences, Fulda. Formerly, he worked as a Research Fellow at the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick.