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

Abstract

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 but the GUF judged them insufficiently capable of this and they therefore had only limited involvement in GUF-led activities. Analysts arguing that a ‘global system of industrial relations’ is emerging must take account of such issues deriving from trade unionism's global heterogeneity.