European Works Councils (EWC) are information and consultation bodies representing employees in European multinational companies.
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The European Union Explained*
Transcription
Where, is the European Union? Obviously here somewhere, but much like the the European continent itself, which has an unclear boundary, the European Union also has some fuzzy edges to it. To start, the official members of the European Union are, in decreasing order of population: * Germany * France * The United Kingdom * Italy * Spain * Poland * Romania * The Kingdom of the Netherlands * Greece * Belgium * Portugal * The Czech Republic * Hungary * Sweden * Austria * Bulgaria * Denmark * Slovakia * Finland * Ireland * Croatia * Lithuania * Latvia * Slovenia * Estonia * Cyprus * Luxembourg * Malta The edges of the EU will probably continue to expand further out as there are other countries in various stages of trying to become a member. How exactly the European Union works is hideously complicated and a story for another time, but for this video you need know only three things: 1. Countries pay membership dues and 2. Vote on laws they all must follow and 3. Citizens of member countries are automatically European Union citizens as well This last means that if you're a citizen of any of these countries you are free to live and work or retire in any of the others. Which is nice especially if you think your country is too big or too small or too hot or too cold. The European Union gives you options. By the way, did you notice how all three of these statements have asterisks attached to this unhelpful footnote? Well, get used to it: Europe loves asterisks that add exceptions to complicated agreements. These three, for example, point us toward the first bit of border fuzziness with Norway, Iceland and little Liechtenstein. None of which are in the European Union but if you're a EU citizen you can live in these countries and Norwegians, Icelanders, or Liechtensteiner(in)s can can live in yours. Why? In exchange for the freedom of movement of people they have to pay membership fees to the European Union -- even though they aren't a part of it and thus don't get a say its laws that they still have to follow. This arrangement is the European Economic Area and it sounds like a terrible deal, were it not for that asterisk which grants EEA but not EU members a pass on some areas of law notably farming and fishing -- something a country like Iceland might care quite a lot about running their own way. Between the European Union and the European Economic Area the continent looks mostly covered, with the notable exception of Switzerland who remains neutral and fiercely independent, except for her participation in the Schengen Area. If you're from a country that keeps her borders extremely clean and / or well-patrolled, the Schengen Area is a bit mind-blowing because it's an agreement between countries to take a 'meh' approach to borders. In the Schengen Area international boundaries look like this: no border officers or passport checks of any kind. You can walk from Lisbon to Tallinn without identification or need to answer the question: "business or pleasure?". For Switzerland being part of Schengen but not part of the European Union means that non-swiss can check in any time they like, but they can never stay. This koombaya approach to borders isn't appreciated by everyone in the EU: most loudly, the United Kingdom and Ireland who argue that islands are different. Thus to get onto these fair isles, you'll need a passport and a good reason. Britannia's reluctance to get fully involved with the EU brings us to the next topic: money. The European Union has its own fancy currency, the Euro used by the majority, but not all of the European Union members. This economic union is called the Eurozone and to join a country must first reach certain financial goals -- and lying about reaching those goals is certainly not something anyone would do. Most of the non-Eurozone members when they meet the goals, will ditch their local currency in favor of the Euro but three of them Denmark, Sweden and, of course, the United Kingdom, have asterisks attracted to the Euro sections of the treaty giving them a permanent out-out. And weirdly, four tiny European countries Andorra, San Marino, Monaco & Vatican City have an asterisk giving them the reverse: the right print and use Euros as their money, despite not being in the European Union at all. So that's the big picture: there's the EU, which makes all the rules, the Eurozone inside it with a common currency, the European Economic Area outside of it where people can move freely and the selective Schengen, for countries who think borders just aren't worth the hassle. As you can see, there's some strange overlaps with these borders, but we're not done talking about complications by a long shot one again, because empire. So Portugal and Spain have islands from their colonial days that they've never parted with: these are the Madeira and Canary Islands are off the coast of Africa and the Azores well into the Atlantic. Because these islands are Spanish and Portuguese they're part of the European Union as well. Adding a few islands to the EU's borders isn't a big deal until you consider France: the queen of not-letting go. She still holds onto a bunch of islands in the Caribbean, Reunion off the coast of Madagascar and French Guiana in South America. As far as France is concerned, these are France too, which single handedly extends the edge-to-edge distance of the European Union across a third of Earth's circumference. Collectively, these bits of France, Spain and Portugal are called the Outermost Regions -- and they're the result of the simple answer to empire: just keep it. On the other hand, there's the United Kingdom, the master of maintaining complicated relationships with her quasi-former lands -- and she's by no means alone in this on such an empire-happy continent. The Netherlands and Denmark and France (again) all have what the European Union calls Overseas Territories: they're not part of the European Union, instead they're a bottomless well of asterisks due to their complicated relationships with both with the European Union and their associated countries which makes it hard to say anything meaningful about them as a group but... in general European Union law doesn't apply to these places, though in general the people who live there are European Union citizens because in general they have the citizenship of their associated country, so in general they can live anywhere in the EU they want but in general other European Union citizens can't freely move to these territories. Which makes these places a weird, semipermeable membrane of the European Union proper and the final part we're going to talk about in detail even though there are still many, more one-off asterisks you might stumble upon, such as: the Isle of Man or those Spanish Cities in North Africa or Gibraltar, who pretends to be part of Southwest England sometimes, or that region in Greece where it's totally legal to ban women, or Saba & friends who are part of the Netherlands and so should be part of the EU, but aren't, or the Faeroe Islands upon which while citizens of Denmark live they lose their EU citizenship, and on and on it goes. These asterisks almost never end, but this video must.
Purpose
The rationale behind the establishment of European Works Councils is related to the economic and political integration of the European Union. As companies became more transnational, the local information and consultation bodies (such as works councils) lacked a direct link to the level on which the real decisions are taken. As EWCs bring employee representatives of all over Europe together with the European management, they have an opportunity to be informed and consulted on the transnational companies strategy and status.
Legal basis
European Works Councils are regulated by two European directives. The first EWC directive was adopted in 1994 (94/45/EC) and a revised directive was adopted in 2009 (2009/38/EC; aka "EWC Recast Directive" and "Transnational Works Council Directive"). These directives are transposed into national legislation in all European Union and European Economic Area countries.
In 2005, the EU Commission issued a draft proposal to update the 1994 Directive,[1] noting particularly that while 820 European Works Councils existed, that represented merely 36% of the enterprises falling within the scope of the directive and around 60% of total employees. It also took the position that works councils as they stood were not 'up to the task of playing their full role in anticipating and managing change and building up a genuine transnational dialogue between management and labour'.[2] The adoption of the 'EWC Recast Directive' came after a long period of discussion on the desirability of giving these councils extra rights and putting an extra burden on companies. In the end, the EWC Recast Directive adopted in 2009 contained some important changes regarding the definitions of information, consultation and transnational issues, included a right to training for employee representative and provided some more requirements for EWC agreements.[3]
Companies
European Works Councils can be established in multinationals operative in more than two EEA countries if they pass a certain threshold of number of employees. Currently, the company (or the group of companies) needs to employ at least 1000 employees in the EEA and at least 150 employees in two member states. If a company passes these thresholds, an initiative can be taken by the employer or the employees to establish a European Works Council.
After such an initiative, a Special Negotiation Body enters into negotiation on the practicalities of the European Works Council: the composition, the competences, the amount of meeting, the need for translation and interpretation in the meetings and much more. This negotiation results in an EWC agreement which forms the basis for all EWC functioning.
History
In 2005, the EU Commission issued a draft proposal to update the 1995 Directive,[4] noting particularly that while 820 European Works Councils existed, that represented merely 36% of the enterprises falling within the scope of the directive and around 60% of employees. It also took the position that works councils as they stood were not 'up to the task of playing their full role in anticipating and managing change and building up a genuine transnational dialogue between management and labour'.
Since the first Directive on European Works Councils was adopted, over a 1000 EWCs[5] have been created. According to estimations, they would cover an estimated amount of 19 million[6] employees in the EEA. Most EWCs are established in companies from the metal, chemical and services industries. Geographically, most EWCs are established in companies headquartered in Germany, the US, France and the UK.[7]
According to the EWC Recast Directive, the implementation of the Directive was to be evaluated no later than 5 June 2016. This evaluation was however postponed to the end of 2016 and further postponed to 2017. In the meantime, several evaluation studies have been published from the ETUC,[8] the Leuven University;[9] and the ETUI.[10]
See also
References
- ^ COM (2005) 33 final
- ^ COM (2005) 33 final, para 5
- ^ De Spiegelaere, S., & Waddington, J. (2017). "Has the recast made a difference? An examination of the content of European Works Council agreements". European Journal of Industrial Relations. 23 (3): 095968011668594. doi:10.1177/0959680116685948. S2CID 157530192.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ COM (2005) 33 final
- ^ "STATS & GRAPHS". ewcdb.eu. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ "European Works Councils: progress and a long road ahead". NETUF. 2015-12-18. Archived from the original on 2022-02-09. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ "De Spiegelaere, S., & Jagodzinski, R., (2015). European Works Councils and SE Works Councils in 2015. Facts and figures". www.etui.org. Archived from the original on 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ "European works councils assessments and requirements - Report to the ETUC". European Trade Union Confederation. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
- ^ Pulignano, Valeria (2016). European works councils on the move : management perspectives on the development of a transnational institution for social dialogue. Leuven: Centrum voor Sociologisch Onderzoek (CeSO). ISBN 978-90-6784-195-5. OCLC 1031417695.
- ^ Spiegelaere, Stan De (2016). Too little, too late? : evaluating the European Works Councils Recast Directive. Brussels: ETUI, European Trade Union Institute. ISBN 978-2-87452-410-3. OCLC 962180791.
This page was last edited on 20 March 2024, at 20:32