New Halloween deadline set for withdrawal

The largest demonstration in the history of the country with more than one million participants was held on 23 March 2019 in London (photo). They were demanding a people's vote to decide in a second referendum since there was no majority for any of the Brexit options in the British Parliament. This has however been rejected by Brexiteers, since it is very likely...

London EWC conference in the shadow of Brexit

The EWC Academy held its sixth German-British conference on 21 and 22 March 2019 just a few days before the originally planned withdrawal from the EU. 25 participants from five countries turned up for the event in the Bloomsbury House in London city center. The date could have hardly been more appropriate: on the second conference day Catherine Barnard...

Strike in Hungary paralyses car manufacturing in Germany

On 28 January 2019, production in the Audi Ingolstadt plant came to a halt for one week. The Nekarsulm plant as well as the Volkswagen plants in Leipzig and Bratislava (Slovakia) were also affected. This was caused by an interruption in the supply of engines from the Győr plant in Hungary which had been on strike since 24 January 2019. After only one week strike...

Port strike in Sweden threatened to paralyze Volvo car manufacturing

On 6 March 2019, a strike in several ports could be avoided at the very last moment. The largest Volvo plant in Torslanda (near Gothenburg) would have already had to stop their production on the following day. Volvo relies on regular supplies, and its stock in storage is only sufficient for a one day's production. The food imports to Sweden...

Italian paper manufacturer: no EWC meetings to protect the climate

On 7th February 2019, the district court (tribunale ordinario) in Lucca, Tuscany (photo) ruled on the modalities for organizing Special Negotiating Body and European works council meetings under Italian jurisdiction. The central management of Sofidel has categorically refused to finance any face-to-face meetings and is proposing video conferences instead. Sofidel is a family business manufacturing tissue paper products...

French railways violates EWC law

On 22 February 2019 the regional court in Bobigny (near Paris) ruled on a complaint filed by the SNCF's European works council against the central management. It started legal proceedings in December 2017, since only the French central works council had been informed and consulted on the sale of its STVA subsidiary to the Renault group. STVA has 2,150 employees in eight EU Member States and Morocco...

German judges decide not to impose sanctions retroactively

On 15 March 2019, the Bonn labour court dismissed a complaint filed by the Deutsche Telekom's European works council. It had only been informed in February 2018, weeks after the German central works council, about plans for a substantial reduction in the workforce at T-systems and immediately requested an injunction order against central management. The Bonn labour court...

Employer takes chair in French SE works council

The Faurecia group was registered as a European Company (SE) on 26 December 2018. This French company belongs to the world's ten largest automobile suppliers and manufactures inter-alia car seats. The majority of its shares belongs to PSA Peugeot Citroën. Half of its global turnover is generated by 45,000 workers in Europe, including 13,000 in France and 11,000 in Germany. The SE agreement...

German commercial vehicle manufacturer with full-parity codetermination

Volkswagen Truck & Bus has been operating as a European Company (SE) since 17 January 2019 under the new company name Traton. This subsidiary of the Volkswagen group with 81,000 employees is based in Munich and has a presence across Europe particularly through the German MAN group as well as through Scania from Sweden. The SE agreement was signed in Stockholm on 28 August 2018...

German beverage delivery service avoids codetermination

An SE agreement was concluded for Flaschenpost on 8 November 2018 at their headquarters in Münster. The delivery service is owned by more than a dozen German and foreign investment companies, which have invested more than 20 million €s into the largely loss-making startup. Flaschenpost employs 1,700 drivers, warehouse and office workers in eight cities: Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Mannheim as well as...

No codetermination for German-Italian copper producer

The former Osnabrück Copper and Wire Company has been operating as KME SE since 22 February 2019. Only one week after its SE registration it acquired MKM (Mansfelder Kupfer und Messing), the fifth-largest company in Saxony-Anhalt. MKM has 1,200 employees in East Germany and a presence in the growth markets of electric mobility and renewable energies. KME has 1,700 employees...

Innovative agreement to prevent escaping codetermination

An SE agreement was signed on 5 March 2019 at the headquarters of the Köster construction group in Osnabrück, representing a completely new dimension for a family owned business. It is so far the only SE conversion in the whole of Europe with backstop for a return to German codetermination rules by any change in ownership. If the founding family's...

Transnational group works council for PVC cable manufacturer from Burgundy

An agreement for the establishment of a group works council which also incorporates Spain and Italy was concluded under French jurisdiction on 22 October 2018 at the headquarters of Benvic Europe in Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur (near Dijon). The company has only 225 employees in Europe and is therefore not subject to the EWC Directive. The group works council...

French group for digital security systems establishes EWC

A EWC agreement for Idema was concluded on 18 November 2018. The company was founded in May 2017, as a result of the merger between the Identity & Security Division of the electronics group Safran and the Oberthur Technologies group. Both have their head offices in France and with 14,000 employees worldwide (including 4,700 in Europe) they manufacture identity documents, smart cards, biometric recognition...

British EWC moves even further up the league

A new EWC agreement for DS Smith was signed on 10 January 2019 in London. For a long time this recycling company has already been considered as a benchmark for EWC agreements in the United Kingdom. It has nevertheless now improved on these already outstanding provisions. Although there has been a EWC in place since 1996, the current company structure however only...

EWC concludes framework agreement on the future of work

A framework agreement on strategic HR development that is valid throughout Europe was signed on 6 March 2019 in Rotterdam for the Unilever consumer goods group. It contains the following five chapters: lifelong learning, further education, new employment models, transitions within and withdrawal from working life as well as new forms of co-operation between EWC or local employee representatives and management...

Mechanism for resolving disputes at Hennes & Mauritz

The national monitoring committees of H&M held their second worldwide meeting from 10 to 12 December 2018. The participants from the states of Southeast Asia and Turkey met in Phnom Penh (Cambodia). These committees, which are made up of local trade union and management representatives, are part of the global framework agreement that the Swedish textile chain...

Volkswagen's global framework agreement suspended

On 15 January 2019, the global industrial trade union federation (industriALL) announced to the German car manufacturer's central management that it would suspend the international framework agreement from 2002. The justification given was the events in the US Chattanooga plant in Tennessee, where site management has been preventing the establishment of employee representation for many years now...

First global framework agreement in the Italian finance industry

A global framework agreement was signed for UniCredit on 22 January 2019 on the fringe of a European works council meeting in Milan. It applies to 147,000 employees in 22 countries around the world. It guarantees human and trade union rights, work-life balance as well as occupational health and safety and sets out principles for the responsible sale of financial products...

Digitalization Glossary

In a new on-line glossary, the Austrian trade union confederation (ÖGB) explains the expressions used in Digitalization from an employee perspective in simple terms. The glossary was created as part of the Fair Work 4.0 project. In this project, 500 participants from all regions of Austria had discussed how to shape work, codetermination and a fair society in a digital world...

Trade unions in Mediterranean finance industry

UNI Med Finance (UMF) was founded in May 2016. In particular, this network of trade unions in the banking industry wishes to investigate the impact of digitalization. The UMF covers the southern EU coastal countries from Portugal to Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta right through to south Cyprus as well as Turkey...

Critical background reports from Europe

The motto of Investigate Europe, a team of journalists from eight countries in Eastern and Western Europe is to make transnational structures visible and the key actors accountable. With financial support from inter-alia the German trade union linked Hans-Böckler Foundation, they investigate subjects which are interesting across Europe such as Chinese investments, 5G mobile networks or the BlackRock Investment Company...

European network of employee friendly labour lawyers

The network "European Lawyers for Workers" was founded in 2013 and serves as a means for exchanging experience between labour lawyers and legal experts on topics which are relevant across Europe from an employee perspective. A conference is held every year...

Study on transnational company agreements

This evaluation on the practical experience of transnational company agreements was published in October 2018 in Brussels. So far there are over 280 such agreements, which are however not legally binding. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the European Parliament have already been demanding a legislative initiative on the subject since 2013...

Reference manual on trade unions in 48 countries

This compendium of organizations affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) as well as to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was published in November 2018. Besides the EU Member States, the 115 pages also include numerous other European countries. The tables at the top of the page for each country provide information on the surface area, population...

Digitalization and Industry 4.0 in four countries

In January 2019, a compilation was released on the "Smart Factory", i.e. the technological vision of a fully automated and intelligent factory. It contains the results of a project headed by the University of Tübingen (Germany) and sponsored by the EU. By means of surveys and expert interviews, scientists and trade unionists from four countries have examined the pressure...

Foreign groups and their practice of German codetermination

For the first time in February 2019, the Hans Böckler Foundation presented a study which analyses the behavior of management towards codetermination and works councils in foreign controlled companies in Germany. The research workers have put together a series of literal assessments from sources interviewed in 21 case studies. It shows that most conflicts arose due to local...

Hamburg EWC and SE conference with 52 participants from nine countries

The eleventh edition of the annual EWC Academy conference took place on 28 and 29 January 2019 and covered current developments in the EWC and SE. This time there was a focus on the legal and practical evaluation of the EWC Directive, which the European Commission had presented in May 2018...

US automobile supplier plans Shared service center in Lithuania

An extraordinary steering committee meeting of Dana's EWC was held on 7 March 2019 in Neu-Ulm (Germany). The EWC had been previously informed that parts of the accounting department were to be relocated to Eastern Europe, which would result in the loss of approximately 100 jobs in Western Europe. EWC Academy advisors are currently working on the economic analysis. The Dana EWC agreement is subject to German jurisdiction and was last updated in 2014...

Training for newly established SE works council

On 8 and 9 April 2019, the SE works council from GK Software met for the first training since its establishment in Plauen (East Germany). The startup which was founded in 1990 has expanded through acquisitions to become the largest listed company in the Eastern German federal state of Saxonia with currently 1,200 employees. The technology company has been operating...

UK government plans to facilitate the establishment of works councils

On 17 December 2018, the UK government department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) presented the "Good Work Plan", a comprehensive program for the future of the job market and labour law. Whereas conservative governments in the past have generally restricted employee rights, this plan does provide a series of improvements. The numerous measures announced include...