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ETUI-REHS Education & EMF Seminar: EWCs and trade union rights in MNCs in EMF sectors
Istanbul, 25-27 January 2008 |
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This event had the support of the EUROPEAN UNION |
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The Education department of ETUI-REHS and the European Metal Workers's Federation organised a seminar in Istabul 2-27 January 2008. This event gathered trade union representatives from Germany, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and the United Kingdom and the purpose was
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To examine the relevance of Core Labour Standards, Trade Union rights and the violation thereof in MNCs or their subcontrators in Europe |
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To develop support for local trade union bodies in MNCs. |
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To exchange experiences about how European Works Councils can contribute to reinforce trade union and representation rights in MNCs and their subcontractors. |
After the formal opening of the seminar by Mr Tony Murphy, EMF, Wiebke Warneck (ETUI-REHS) introduced an overview of trade union rights and industrial relations in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey concentrating mainly on the legal aspects. (Download her presentation from the Seminar documents section of this Web site.)
Representatives from Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria gave further details about their industrial relation and representation systems.
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Gerald Audaz, EMF, presented the International norms and recommendations regarding trade union rights as to be found in the ILO declaration and the OECD guidelines for multinational companies. (Download his presentation from the Seminar documents section). During the following question and and answer round the participants discussed how those norms can be used at local and European level in order to improve the freedom of association and the right of collective bargaining. The provision in the Turkish labour code forcing workers wanting to join a trade union to obtain a notary certification was seen as a major obstacle.
Tony Murphy, EMF, explained the role and the function of the European Metal Workers' Federation and the work done by the various committee. Tony emphasised the role of the EWC coordinators in organising the exchange of information between the EWC, the national unions or representation bodies and the EMF. (See the Seminar documents section).
Two successful cases of cross border cooperation between trade unions were discussed after introductions of Maureen Kearney, General Secretary of the AREVA EWC and Gaye Yilmaz, BIRLESIK METAL-IS. Local management of Turkish subsidiaries of the French based AREVA and the Belgian company BOSAL tried to prevent trade union recruitment and organisation in their plants. As already mentioned, the Turkish legislation regarding trade union rights obliges workers to get a registration certificate from a public notary when joining a trade union. At company level a Turkish trade union must also achieve to recruit a majority of the workforce. This registration procedure and the legal threshold enables employers to pressure workers not to join trade unions infringing on their freedom of association. In both cases the central management of those two groups was made aware about the behavior of their local management in Turkey at the same time as trade union representatives and works councilor expressed their solidarity with the Turkish workers who had been threatened with dismissal. Thanks to this cross border cooperation the Turkish trade union was able to finally organise the workers in those two plants and to gain trade union recognition.
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A case study gave the participants the opportunity to reflect and exchange on strategies on trade union coordination in a situation where the local management of the subsidiary of a MNC plans to outsource activities to a company without trade union recognition. The case study stipulated that 500 workers would be transferred to the subcontracted company. The following suggestions were put forward:
| The subcontracted company has to comply with the requirements of Directive 2001/23/CE. The 500 workers could give a written approval to be represented by the same trade union as in their original company | ||||||||
| Ask the two reps in the EWC to raise the issue with the central management | ||||||||
| Contact and inform the European Industry Federation | ||||||||
| Exchange information about trade unions in the subcontracting and the subcontracted company | ||||||||
| In some countries like Bulgaria the legislation wouldn't allow the trade unions of the subcontracting company to represent the transferred workers in the subcontracted company meanwhile this could be the case in Bulgaria.. | ||||||||
| The reps should contact the select committee of the EWC to disseminate information about what is going on and getting their feed back | ||||||||
| The EWC members should discuss what kind of support they could give | ||||||||
| The EWC chair should contact the coordinator from Denmark so that the EMF will be informed | ||||||||
| If the central management would refuse to organise an extraordinary meeting, the EMF and trade unions from all the concerned countries could organise a meeting | ||||||||
| The chair of the EWC/select committee to send a letter to the CEO | ||||||||
| Information to be gathered
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| The coordinator needs to contact the Danish unions to use their good relations with the central management | ||||||||
| Minimum positions |
The participants agreed that EWCs need to be prepared to face situations like the ones described in the presentations of Maureen Kearney and Gaye Yilmaz and that EMF coordinators play a vital role in coaching the EWCs in the promotion of trade union rights.
| EWCs should establish internal rules for the employee side, stipulating how decisions and resolutions can be adopted |
| It must be clarified how legal steps can be taken and what procedures how mandates to take such steps need to be given |
| In some urgent cases decisions have to be taken at distance, by phone or by email. Such procedures need to be agreed upon between the members before such a situation arises. |
| The employee side in EWCs can also take own initiatives without the involvement of management by making surveys of local/national information, consultation and negotiation procedures and trade union rights |
| A communication structure between meetings needs to be defined in each EWC connecting the various sites, the EWC, the coordinator, EMF and the national trade unions. |
During the final round table the participants expressed their satisfaction with the organisation of the seminar and made the following comments:
| The technical translation system didn't work properly, on several occasions we had to wait for problems to be solved before interventions were translated to all the relevant languages |
| Pre-seminar information should be more extensive in order to allow all the participants to be better prepared |
| There is a need for more information and knowledge about the various industrial relation systems (Comment from the training team: such information is available on the Web Site to www. worker-participation.eu , (but for the time being only in English) |
| Although the quality of interpretation was good, there is always a risk of misunderstandings, since translated terms cover quite often very different realities. A glossary of social relation expression giving not only the translation but also an explanation of specific terms from different countries would facilitate mutual comprehension. ( Comment from the training team: See the European industrial relations dictionary Designed as an easy-to-use online reference tool, the European industrial relations dictionary is a comprehensive collection of the most commonly used terms in employment and industrial relations at EU level today. The dictionary can be found at: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/index.htm) |
| More time should be devoted to group work on practical case studies and some group activities could be organised for national working groups asked to present their national views and comments on specific cases |
| The seminar was too short, we would need more time to explore all the issues discussed. |
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Some useful links ETUI-REHS A new Web Site on worker participation and industrial relations
Information about EU Budget lines
A glossary about industrial relation systems i EU-15 countries: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emire/emire.htm
European labour law & directives: EU legislation on Information & Consultation The European Trade Union Institute |
This site was last updated 01/28/08
