EU: launching of the revision of the EWC directive

The European Commission adopted today, July 2, 2008, the proposal to revise the EWC directive. The major changes compared to the previous version – which Planet Labor had obtained (see our dispatch No. 080420) – concern the definition of consultation and its scope, as well as the training of staff representatives. The governments are going to start the negotiations with, as a background, the conflicting expectations of two major role players. On the one hand, the ETUC denounces a draft which mainly serves employers' interests; on the other, BusinessEurope and German and British employers say that it adds expenses and administrative burdens for businesses. (Ref. 080553)

A draft which already generates many reactions. The spirit of the revision is the same. It has to do with ensuring more effective information and consultation rights for workers, and to “increase the proportion of European Works Councils established, resolving the problems encountered in the practical application of Directive 94/45, increase legal certainty resulting from some of its provisions or the absence of certain provisions, and ensure that the directives on information and consultation of employees are better linked.” The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) thinks that these declared objectives have not been achieved and denounces a draft directive that mainly serves employers’ interests. In Great Britain and Germany, employers’ organizations expose the new bureaucracy which will result from the directive, and are especially worried about the questioning of anticipation agreements (companies had until September 22, 1996 to reach voluntary agreements) that the draft directive might entail. Reactions on both sides foretell animated debates within the Council of Ministers, which will start studying the text in the fall, under the French presidency.…

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