CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

Implementation and monitoring of cross-border agreements – Bercusson
Hall, 2006, pp. 12-20). 4 This report proposes a directive that builds on the
experience of EWCs to develop an optional framework for an EU
transnational collective bargaining system within which transnational
collective agreements with legally binding effect could be concluded. The
optional framework would be activated by a number of different mechanisms,
all of which however involve the voluntary and joint initiative of
European trade unions and employers’ organizations at sectoral or crossindustry
level, sometimes triggered by a joint request from an EWC and
the management of the relevant multinational enterprise (MNE).
The response of the European employers’ organization, the Union
of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe (UNICE, now
BusinessEurope), has been one of opposition to any new framework for
transnational collective bargaining, even an optional one. The experience
of EWCs to date is indicative of the problems. 5
The experience of European works councils
The recent data published by the European Trade Union Institute
for Research, Education and Health and Safety (ETUI-REHS) calculates
that there were 772 MNEs with EWCs in place as of June 2005. This is
35 per cent of the total of 2,204 MNEs covered by the Directive (Kerckhofs,
2006). 6 It appears that initiatives to establish an EWC have not
been taken in the large majority (1,432 or 65 per cent) of the MNEs concerned.
One conclusion that had already been drawn in early 2000 was
that “the establishment of EWCs seems never to have gained momentum
and their growth rate appears to have stabilised at a relatively low level”
(Platzer et al., 2001, p. 91). Most agreements were made by favourably
disposed managements who made “voluntary agreements” either before
the Directive was adopted, or to beat the 22 September 1996 deadline
for agreements to be made under Article 13 of the Directive, which pro-
4
The Commission has organized two study seminars on this theme. See also Bé (this volume).
5
“The European Commission issued a first consultation document on the possible review of the
European Works Councils (EWCs) Directive on 20 April 2004. In this, it asked the EU-level social partners
how they believe the EWCs Directive, which dates from 1994, can best respond to the challenges of a changing
economic and social environment… [In early 2005] the European Commission issued a communication
dealing with industrial restructuring and EWCs, which constitutes the second formal consultation of the
social partners on EWCs… During the second half of 2005, the social partners issued their responses to the
communication. The ETUC has stated that it would like to see a legislative revision of the EWCs Directive…
By contrast, UNICE neither wants the Commission to prepare further legislation on EWCs, nor to interfere
with local-level decisions. There have been no further pronouncements on this from the Commission during
the first six months of 2006” (EIRR, 1996, pp. 16-18).
6
For a summary, see Hall (2006), pp. 4-6.
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