25 years European Works Council Directive ánd 25 years EWC Service (blog 1/25)
On 22 September 1994, the first European Work Council Directive was adopted. This is exactly 25 years ago. The EWC Directive was a major milestone in labour relations: for the first time cross border employee representation has been institutionalised.
With the adoption of the EWC directive, employees of multinational companies with more than 1000 employees, got the legal right to organise themselves at European level. 25 years later, the EWC database of the European Trade Union Institute contains around 1.100 agreements of active EWC’s.
The mere existence of the EWC directive, giving rights and facilities to European employees, is already a success. It makes multinational companies aware that they cannot take measures without taking into account the interests of its employees.
All 1.100 EWC’s are relevant players in the field of the social dialogue at company level, some more- and some less successful. There are of course, points to be improved: of all companies that should have an EWC, it is estimated that not even half of them have one. And for the existing EWC’s it is rather difficult and complex to enforce the legal rights, when ignored by a company.
We will celebrate the success of European Works Councils with you in the coming weeks. The EWC Service has been supporting in establishing and training EWC’s from the very start in 1994. We will share with you our 25 years of experience with the European Works Council in 25 blogs. We hope you will enjoy reading our stories and invite you to also share your EWC experience with us.
Please share your EWC experience with us : How long have you been active in the EWC?
The EWC Service of SBI Formaat: Petra Molenaar, Sjef Stoop, Maayke Somers and Mariëlle van der Coelen
