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Employment Practices of Multinationals in the Spanish and German Quick-Food Sectors: Low-Road Convergence?

National University of Ireland, Ireland tony.royle{at}nuigalway

This article examines the labour relations practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the German and Spanish quick-food service sectors. The demand for greater profitability and lower costs is leading to a greater standardization of work methods across a widening range of food service operators, resulting in the gradual elimination of more expensive, skilled and experienced workers, and an increasingly non-union approach in employee relations practices. The outcome involves increasing standardization, union exclusion, low trust, low skills, and low pay. These sectoral characteristics appear to outweigh both country-of-origin and host-country effects. The findings therefore confirm continuing variation within national industrial relations systems and the importance of sectoral characteristics and organizational contingencies in understanding MNC cross-border behaviour.

European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 10, No. 1, 51-71 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0959680104041191


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