While only directly employing one per cent of the world's workforce, indirectly through complex supply changes and extensive subcontracting, transnational corporations (TNCs) exercise vast control over employment standards in metalworking sectors around the world.

Cost reductions sought by TNCs frequently include a shift from secure to insecure forms of employment, fragmentation of collective bargaining, corporate restructuring, and abuse of human and workers' rights.

There is an urgent need for international solidarity and cooperation among metalworkers in TNCs and along the TNC supply chains to reverse these trends.

IMF seeks to challenge the power of TNCs through two main interrelated streams of work:

• Trade Union Networks in TNCs
• International Framework Agreements