1. Introduction The International Trade Secretariats put the establishment of global trade union networks on the agenda back in the late 1960s/ early 1970s in a deliberate act of strength and founded a plethora of so­called global company councils or committees. In doing so, they underestimated the difficulty of breathing life into global trade union networks and keeping them going. They lacked above all the human and financial resources needed to fulfil their self-appointed pioneering role. Once the networks were in place, the social momentum that had been anticipated failed to materialise, with the result that the global company councils and committees did not meet the expectations placed in them and largely remained an episode confined to the 1970s. Global trade union networks do still- and increasingly- form part of the repertoire of actions available to the Global Union Federations, but their development potential and limitations have still not been fully clarified to this day. When setting up global company trade union networks, the Global Union Federations cannot rely on any political/ legal safeguards akin to those created within the European Union by the EU directive on the establishment of European Works Councils; instead, they are left to their own devices. Meanwhile their resources are sufficient at best to foster trade union networking within companies in a highly pragmatic, unsystematic fashion. 1 The IUF 2 trade union network within the Nestlé corporation, described in more detail below, is an exception on account of its relatively high and sustained level of activity; it is underpinned on the one hand by the commitment of the IUF, which has chosen Nestlé as a focus of its company activities, and on the other by financial support from the Norwegian trade union confederation LO(Landsorganisasjonen i 1 See on this point Torsten Müller, Hans-Wolfgang Platzer, Stefan Rüb(2003 FI= däçÄ~äáëáÉêìåÖ= ìåÇ= ÖÉïÉêâëÅÜ~ÑíäáÅÜÉ= fåíÉêå~íáçå~äáëáÉêìåÖK= wìê= mçäáíáâ= ÇÉê= däçÄ~ä=råáçå=cÉÇÉê~íáçåë, in: WSI-Mitteilungen 11, 666-672. 2 International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers‘ Associations 5