The Routledge Companion to Employment Relations

14

Multinationals as employment relations actors

María Jesús Belizón

Introduction

Much has been written about employment relations (ER) actors since John T. Dunlop’s seminal work, Industrial Relations Systems (1958). His simple, concise and neat categorisation – employers, trade unions and state – constituted the starting point and bedrock for the systematisation of the study of ER across the globe. The differing and unique interlocking relationships among these actors in different nations have been the focus of numerous international comparative studies, providing scholars, practitioners and policy-makers with a universal ‘convention’ with which to describe, analyse, criticise, modify and shape the employment relationship (Bellemare, 2000, ...