Obstacles to transnational trade union cooperation in Europe—results from a European survey

ABSTRACT This article analyses obstacles to transnational union cooperation within Europe. It is based on a survey of unions in 14 European countries and all members of the European Trade Union Confederation. The result shows that ‘hard’ industrial relations factors are generally more important obstacles to transnational cooperation than ‘softer’ factors such as cultural, linguistic, ideological and religious differences and that there are sectoral differences in experiences of obstacles to transnational union cooperation: unions in the manufacturing sector tend to emphasise differences in industrial relations and a lack of organisational resources for transnational union cooperation, whereas low organisational priorities are held to be of more importance in the services sector and for unions for professional workers.