Abstract
Since the second half of the 1990s, cross-sectoral, sectoral and company-level bargaining has developed into a key movement in transnational industrial relations in the European Union. Originally stimulated by EU institutions, these forms of bargaining have since progressed autonomously. At present, it is difficult to say exactly what effect, if any, they can have on individual working conditions. Based on a 2005 report to the European Commission, this paper argues for EU legislative action to create an optional framework for transnational collective bargaining, in the form of a Council regulation to be adopted under the social and economic cohesion chapters of the EU Treaty.