National and international labour relations in oil and gas Trans National Corporations in Kazakhstan

The paper examines labour relations in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas TNCs, contributing to recent debates on the Global Union Federations’ (GUFs) and national unions’ roles in building a global system of industrial relations. These debates suggest a need for GUFs to involve national unions in organisation within and dialogue with TNCs. The GUF considered here judged them insufficiently capable of this and they therefore had only limited involvement in GUF-led activities. Theories of an emerging ‘global system of industrial relations’ must recognise such issues deriving from trade unionism’s global heterogeneity and the weak spots it creates within the emergent system. : Asia; labour relations; oil and gas industry.