After looking in the previous blogs at what the European Commission proposes to change in the EWC Directive with regard to the right to meetings and confidentiality, we now delve into the core tasks of the EWC. What will change with regard to information and consultation?
Core tasks of the EWC: information and consultation
The old text of the Directive stated that the company must enable the EWC to issue an opinion at such a time that it can be taken into account within the company. The hidden meaning of this is that the company may not take irreversible steps to implement the proposed measure before the consultation has been completed with an opinion. And that they must therefore start on time with the information and consultation.
In our EWC training courses we often spend a long time trying to clarify this. To take away these unclarities, the European Parliament (EP) proposed to explicitly state that consultation must take place prior to the proposed measures. The EP also proposed to include that the opinion will be taken into account. In addition, they also suggested that the EWC should be able to receive a reasoned response to its opinion in a timely manner before the decision is adopted.
Regarding the timeliness of the procedure, the EP also added that there should be time for the EWC to consult the relevant local employee representations before the EWC gives its opinion.
The good news
What is left of this in the proposal of the Commission? The good news is that the Commission has agreed to the proposal to explicitly include in the Directive that consultation must take place prior to the proposed measures. The Commission also agrees that the EWC must be able to receive a reasoned written response before the decision is adopted.
The Commission did not accept the proposal that the company should take the opinion into account. That is too bad. But on the positive side the entire section of the old Directive has been deleted, which implicitly defines timeliness as ‘such a time that the opinion can be taken into account’. This has therefore been replaced by the much clearer provision that consultation must take place prior to the decision.
A bit of a shock
It was a bit of a shock when we read that the part that stated that the information must enable the EWC to make an ‘in-depth assessment’ has been deleted from the definition for information. But that part is moved to another article. The Commission has chosen to split the definitions of information and consultation into two parts. The one part is purely a definition of what information and consultation are. The other part concerns the requirements that information and consultation must meet.
Unfortunately, the committee did not go along with the EP’s proposal that there should be sufficient time during the consultation period for the EWC to consult the relevant local employee representations before the EWC gives its opinion.
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And what now?
In the first and second blog (see below) we have discussed a number of important changes. There are other changes in the Commission proposal, but for now we will stop at this. As soon as the European Council of Ministers has adopted the proposal, with or without amendments, the EWC Service will make a more complete analysis. This can be helpful in overcoming the final hurdle: the transposition of the Directive into national legislation. There will be a lot of lobbying on this at a national level and EWC members and trade unions will have to provide a much-needed counterbalance to the lobby of the large companies.
Written by Sjef Stoop and Haniie Ontijt, trainers/advisors EWC Service
Also read the first blog The EWC: what will change?
Also read the second blog The EWC: what will change? (2)
