The German insurance company ALLIANZ is one of the first large stock exchange-listed companies to have adopted the legal status of a European Company (Societas Europaea, SE), in conjunction with its crossborder merger with the Italian group RAS Holding S.p.A. By adopting the European Company Statute, ALLIANZ SE also committed itself to "an intensive dialogue between the management and the employee representatives and their unions." As a result, an agreement was signed on "the formation of an SE Works Council and co-determination on the SE supervisory board" based on EU directive 2001/86/EC.

The agreement allows 37 employee representatives from 24 countries to become members of the SE Works Council with the "right to be informed and consulted with respect to crossborder matters".

As part of their work, those representatives attended a training course on 15-16 July 2008, which was run by Jean-Claude Le Douaron from the Education Department of the European Trade Union Institute assisted by Jörg Reinbrech from Ver.di.

What employee representatives need to know in order to be efficient an proactive members of a body like a SE Works Council

Representatives in SE Works Councils and in European Works Council need not only to understand information provided by central management, they need also to understand the views and the expectations of the other representatives, and particularly those who are used to very different worker representation systems. Although most European countries share certain notions about the “social dimension”, social dialogue arrangements vary considerably from one country to the next. Some industrial relations systems rely heavily on legislation whilst others are regulated to a much larger extent by collective agreements. And one common mistake is to assume that trade union density reflects the relative strength of representation bodies.

For representatives from other countries it can be a surprise that the works council of companies headquartered in Germany is chaired by an employee and that the agenda of meetings is set by the employee side, which "invites" the management to provide information and/or consult them on various topics.

The variety of representation bodies and their prerogatives were outlined and this was followed up by some case studies, in which participants were asked to present the ways in which issues related to outsourcing, continuing training, working time, etc, were handled in their respective countries. (The materials and presentations can be downloaded from the Document section of this Web Site.)

"Cross-cultural communication" can also give rise to misunderstanding between representatives. By definition, transnational meetings bring together experts and participants with different languages. At a given meeting an expert from management may be addressing Scandinavian, Portuguese, British, Italian and other participants in German. Such a range of languages creates a communication problem which normally is solved through simultaneous interpretation. However, even with excellent interpreters it must be borne in mind that a speaker's message may be distorted to some extent by the translation. Some terms used in national representation contexts refer to concepts which differ from one country to the next. The French “comité d'entreprise”, for instance, denotes an information and consultation body (which also has a social function) composed of workers' representatives and chaired by an employer. A worker's representative, on the other hand, does the chairing of the equivalent German “Betriebsrat”. The way the information and the key points are presented can also sometimes lead to misunderstandings. Interventions by representatives in works council or trade union meetings often involve presenting arguments. The "Latin" approach tends to use a thesis- antithesis- synthesis structure, aimed at drawing the listener into sharing the conclusions of the speaker, who keeps back her/his opinion or proposal until the end of the speech (main message at end). In Northern Europe the tendency is more to state one's point of view at the start of the speech and develop the arguments subsequently (main message at the beginning). Participants from Latin cultures may well be disconcerted by the method of delivery of a presentation by a British, German or Scandinavian speaker.

In working groups the reps were asked to work out some common views on several cases illustrating cross-cultural communication issues in representation contexts.

Representatives in the ALLIANZ SE Works Council need to develop a common understanding and a shared view about their role within this new kind of transnational information and consultation body. With that in mind, a comparative analysis of the ALLIANZ SE agreement was used and provided a good basis for a discussion about the possible role and function of the SE Works Council.

Further training sessions are planned for the ALLIANZ SE Works Council with a view to increasing cohesion and cooperation between its members and building a strong Europe-wide representation network.