This event had the support of the EUROPEAN UNION

The participants

A joint seminar organised by the Education and the Research Department of the European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education, Heath and Safety gathered workers' board level representatives from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. These colleagues are representing workers voice at the top of the company decision making bodies. Consequently, it is important to open minds of the officials of EU policies on the personalities and, more important, to the demands and needs of this special type of companies leaders. Turning it also other way round the seminar was intended to open views for realistic assessment of the role and the importance of this subject in European policies, mainly in the fields of European corporate law and further measures of the EU Commission to promote better mobility and performance of companies in the internal market. The seminar  provided with opportunities of exchanging views and opinions  with representatives from the European Parliament, the Commission as well as with trade union experts and representatives from the European Trade Union Confederation and affiliated European Industry Federations. It was the first time ETUI-REHS addressed such a seminar particularly to workers' representtaives in company (supervisory) boards.

The seminar was kindly hosted by the  European Economic and Social Committee, represented by Antoine Cochet for a warm welcome.  Jean-Claude Le Douaron from the Education department welcomed the participants on behalf of the ETUI-REHS. It became soon quite clear that implementation of European legislation regarding workplace representation can in some cases impact in a negative way on acquired co-determination rights as it was expressed by some of the participants during the presentation round. On the other hand, participants from some countries highlighted that in their case the legislation on the European Company (SE) has resulted in a strengthening of their national rights.

The process and the possible consequences of European law making were discussed with Harald Ettl from the European Parliament after an introduction by Norbert Kluge. He introduced very briefly the procedure of creating European law within the triangle of the Council of Ministers, the European Commisison and the European Parliament by stressing the creation of the 10^th European directive of the European Company Law on cross-border mergers. MEP Ettl illustrated afterwards impressively the cliffs and shelfs of the process of EU legislation, particularly, on this subject which is discussed always very controversial and which is many times regarded as not much more than a bothering footnote of European legislation. He chose the example of the debate on the for already a long time outstanding revision of the EWC directive.

The new ETUI-REHS online resource www.worker-participation.eu was presented by Michael Stollt. The website is designed as an information source on developments in the field of worker involvement and company law/corporate governance. In the coming months parts of the website will be translated into German and French.

The challenges and the perspectives of workers' board level representation in the framework of EU and national legislation were debated after an introduction by Robbert van het Kaar (University of Amsterdam) being member of  the SEEUROPE expert network of ETUI-REHS observing and reporting continuously from all 27 EU-member states and the three concerned EEA-member states Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland on upcoming SEs and the involvement of the workers in particular.

This prepared the participants for the following debate with representatives from different General Directions of the EU-Commission.  Francesco Perez-Flores (GD Employment and Social Affairs), Zsofia Kerecsen (GD Internal Market and Services) and Thomas Dodd (GD Enterprise and Industry) introduced topics which are relevant for workers' board level representatives and set out themselves a debate on the effects  of EU legislation and activities of the EU Commission in the fields  modernisation of company law, European Corporate Governance Forum and Corporate Social Responsibility perceived some what critically by the participants.

A second part of the pilot seminar touched aspects relevant for the future of this type of interest representation aiming to search for appropriate subjects. Thereby, Sigurt Vitols (Science Center Berlin WZB, SEEUROPE expert network) introduced “The Sustainable European Company” as an impulse for further consideration. Together with the participants, regarded as high level experts on balancing social and business interests to the benefits of the workers in their companies it was argued how far a concept can be promoted favouring rather a long-term orientation than a short and high return of investment often caused by a new type of owners like big funds or private equity. The debate have only be started on the question whether board level representation could be used as a lever for changing general orientations of companies towards respecting stakeholder interests in a broader notion and sustainability as an company objective.

The seminar was completed by a panel aiming to assess the meaning and the possibilities of worker participation in the light of European policies of trade unions.  Reiner Hoffmann, Deputy General Secretary of ETUC, Harald Wiedenhofer, General Secretary of EFFAT, Bart Samyn Deputy General Secretary of EMF and Wolfgang Greif , GPA (white collar trade union of Austria)  took common position by  emphasisingthe  commitment of the European Trade Union organisations to workers' participation and the need to reinforce European legislation in this field. It was a common view that strong workers' rights at European level have to be complementary to national rights in order to avoid that employees from different countries are played off against each others as it still is to often the case.

In this context the revision of the EWC directive was highlighted as a  urgent step forward to improve workers rights for influencing management decision making in the interest of the workers and their trade unions.

Useful links:

European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education, Health & Safety

European Trade Union Confederation

The Hans Böckler Fundation

EFFAT- European Federation of Food, Agriculture & Tourism Trade Unions

EMF: European Metal Workers' Federation

An ETUI-REHS Web Site about Workers' participation issues

-          EMF: European Metal Workers' Federation

-         http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/labour_law/directives_en.htm#Infocons

-         http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/company/index_en.htm

-         http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/csr/official_doc.htm