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While the law governing labor relations has proved to a degree capable of adaptation to the conditions of a world economy marked by international trade and the appearance of multinational enterprises, the challenges resulting from globalization are of a different order. National labor law can no longer fully grasp the reality of internationally fragmented production, states themselves come under pressure from regulatory competition, and economic and social conditions inside and outside the enterprise develop faster than the law evolves or than existing law can be enforced effectively. This paper substantiates these propositions in a first section by detailing the development of national labor law both as regards the substance of its application to multinational enterprises and as regards the extraterritorial reach of its enforcement. In addition, transnational rules have been set, mainly by the European Union, in particular with respect to matters of employee representation. Another new phenomenon sees the social partners themselves adapting their relations to the conditions of globalization either by voluntarily and unilaterally adopting rules governing social conduct or by establishing new forms of social dialogue. The second part of the paper is devoted to the development of truly global rules of labor relations that match the territorial scope of globalized industrial activities. As an example, the paper gives a historical account of the ill-fated controversies over the insertion of a social clause in the WTO accord and then explains the activities developed more recently by the ILO in order to induce states to voluntarily accept minimal social standards. Finally, the paper points to more promising efforts to set binding social standards at the level of regional integration.