In this increasingly global marketplace and within a social and economic landscape marked by profound inequality and which enables organizations to delocalize production and services to countries with lower labor costs and with poorly structured systems of social protection, a number of union federations in Europe and internationally - and with works councils playing a growing role - have begun negotiating with the management of multinational corporations, mainly within Europe, to establish transnational company agreements that can be valid for all of an organization's branch offices and often also for their global supply chains. These agreements, which are being signed beyond the reach of a binding legal framework and with a scope of application that breaches traditional national boundaries (and rules), raise a number of questions as to their nature and efficacy.
Compared to the texts produced in the early 2000s, which often contained mere declarations of intent without any mechanism of verification or control, current practice with regard to these transnational company agreements is showing a clear trend towards better defined content and methods for jointly monitoring their implementation. European and other international framework agreements are a new means of regulating labor relations aimed at establishing forms of transnational solidarity, starting with respect of the fundamental rights defined within the ILO Declaration of 1998. The contributions presented in this work analyze, from a range of complementary points of view, the results of the Euride study coordinated by SindNova over the period 2016-2017 and involving eleven European multinational corporations. Research efforts focused on mechanisms aimed at ensuring actual implementation of the agreements and the procedures for reporting any violations.

Fausta Guarriello is a professor of labor law at the University of Chieti-Pescara. A former Jean Monnet Chair, she is an expert on comparative and transnational collective bargaining, on workers' rights to participation, on anti-discrimination law, and on employment policies. She is the author of two books and numerous scientific papers published in national and international journals.

Claudio Stanzani, director of SindNova, an organization that studies transformation in production and employment, is an expert in EWCs, union training, systems of worker representation, rights to information and consultation, international union cooperation, and health and safety in the workplace. He directed the Social Development Agency (SDA) of the European Trade Union Confederation in Brussels from 2004 to 2012.