European Works Councils

The latest internationalisation of labour markets has had huge impacts on employment & working conditions. Today workers are often employed by a company with its strategic decision-making centre in another EU country. Crucial strategic decisions are no longer taken by national management only, but in European or global headquarters. These circumstances often hamper worker representation and social dialogue at the international level. The ETUC calls for a mechanism to ensure that workers’ rights to be informed and consulted are effectively respected.

Directive 94/45/EC is the legal basis for EWCs. It applies to transnational undertakings and groups of undertakings employing more than 1000 employees in the European Economic Area (EEA), and at least 150 of them in 2 member states.

In 2009, a recast EWC directive was adopted (2009/38/EC). Although it contains some important changes as to the definitions of information, consultation and transnational issues, it is still far from being complete. The proper European Commission’s evaluation of the Recast Directive identified multiple problems with the functioning of EWCs, but this hasn’t been translated into a willingness to improve legislation. Some of the weaknesses of the recast directive are:

• Employers can easily stall or completely block the establishment of an EWC.
• EWCs are often informed after final decisions have already been taken.
• Confidentiality clauses are often misused by management to withhold information.

MEP Dennis Radtke (EPP) will draft a Report on the Revision of the EWC Directive in 2022. The ETUC has started an ad hoc Working Group to steer the report into the right direction.

EWCs continue to be confronted with a done deal, especially in the event of transnational company restructuring. Necessary advances are impossible without a substantial improvement of the EWC Directive. Digitalisation won’t wait and EWCs must have the means to shape it. After 10 years of practices and evidence gathering, it is time to act – to act now & at EU level.

The recent European Parliament Report on Democracy at Work also included most of the ETUC's demands on a revision of the EWC Directive. It already paves the way for the report of MEP Dennis Radtke on the revision of the EWC Directive by stressing - amongst other - the need for effective enforcement.

The ETUC is advocating for a revision of the EWC Directive based on the 10 demands, which include the following elements:

• enforcement of the rights through effective and dissuasive sanctions including a right to a temporary suspension of company decisions with a national trade union prerogative,
• access to justice,
• a right for trade union experts to participate in all EWC and to have access to all sites,
• coordination between the different levels of information and consultation,
• definition of “consultation”, “controlling undertakings” to avoid regime shopping and use of letterbox companies,
• recognition of the role of EU-level trade union organisations in the subsidiary requirements,
• inclusion of “Article 13” agreements in the scope of the directive,
• definition of  ”transnational character of a matter”,
• rules for negotiations with SNB,
• prevention of the abuse of confidentiality rules.

Find here a visualization of our demands with research evidence of why the current legal framework needs to be changed. 

The European Trade Union Federations (ETUFs) and their member organisations provide practical support, advise and training to EWC members on a daily basis. Especially in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, support and monitoring have been scaled up. In this context, please find below joint European Trade Union Federations’ recommendations to EWC/SE Coordinators and worker representatives in SNBs, EWCs and SEs for:

• managing the impact of Brexit on multinational companies

(available in CZ, DE, EN, FR, IT, NL, SV)

• anticipating and managing the impact in multinational companies related to COVID-19

(available in CZ, DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, NL, SV)

• temporary arrangements for transnational meetings during the COVID-19 crisis

(available in CZ, DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, NL, SV).