Securing works council vote before June elections is imperative, says trade union advisor

A European Parliament vote in favour of revising the European Works Councils Directive before June is seen as imperative, and as a safety net in the event of a political shift in the European elections, said Dr Aline Conchon, Head of Company Policy Coordination at industriAll Europe.

Conchon was speaking on the second day of the latest Brussels conference by the Hans Böckler Foundation on 21 March which focused on social dialogue and competitiveness. It was hosted in collaboration with the Mining, Chemical, and Energy Industrial Union (IGBCE) in Brussels.

This event followed the foundation’s December conference where it introduced the topic of codetermination from a perspective of anticipating future skills and its benefits that are felt outside of the workspace.

On 3 April the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee adopted a report aiming to improve social dialogue in the EU by strengthening the role, capacity, and functioning of European Works Councils. The report will now go to a plenary vote in the EP, possibly in the last week of April.

Conchon said the big question is if the EP’s position will be adopted before the EU elections in June. While she didn’t identify specific issues, she said that the vote could be used as a bargaining chip for unrelated “political games”. Assuming the report is adopted, Conchon said that the next question is then if the next parliament will work on the basis of the newly adopted position, or if it will opt for a change in direction.

As for the Council of the European Union, Conchon said that the different ministry representatives have already met and started working on the Commission’s proposal. “They do agree that they need to improve the directive, which is already good,” Conchon said. However, she said that it has not yet sunk in that there is a lot of work still left to be done. This includes sanctions and how to better support European Work Councils (EWCs).

Conchon said that the Belgian Presidency is working hard to have the Council’s position adopted before the elections. With so much hanging in the balance, Conchon pleaded with those present to mobilise their communities to vote in the upcoming EP elections.

Progressive forces need to secure future

MEP Gaby Bischoff (S&D) said she noticed a lot of scepticism on the topic of democracy at the workplace and work councils among liberals and conservatives. However, she remarked that after engaging with them she realised that the main source of resistance was that they simply were not informed enough on the topic.

Bischoff also highlighted how progress was being made across Europe. While Germany already has a strong history with codetermination, Bischoff said that other exemplary models were emerging elsewhere in places such as Finland and Austria.

Conchon explained how industriAll Europe works by trying to ensure that companies are managed in a socially responsible manner. She said that one of the first steps involves improving transparency as a lack of information makes it harder for concrete actions to be taken. If things go well and the information is flowing, then it’s important to establish accountability she said.

This means that when an agreement is reached on things such as environmental responsibility or the well-being of a company’s workers the company must commit to these initiatives and there should be a means to seek redress if things go astray.

An opportunity to address employee concerns

During different session at the event, Maxi Leuchters from the Foundation’s Institute for Co-determination, and Corporate Management (IMU) and Katrin Vitols from the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) presented on the links between co-determination and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

“The ESG topic is a big opportunity to put employee concerns higher on the agenda. The danger is that we only end up talking about ecology,” Leuchters said.

She explained that if work councils want employee concerns to be discussed in the context of sustainability discussions, it’s important for them to be the ones to introduce the topic as the experts on it. However, they were advised to already start preparing for such actions.

“How are you positioning yourself internally on the topic? Have you decided who will be responsible for the work on this topic and which structures are suitable to support this theme?” Vitols asked when highlighting the points work councils had to focus on.

Unions as defenders of democracy

Panellists on the final Q&A session of the day faced several questions on the importance of the June elections and how they will be mobilising people to head to the polling booths. For those sceptical about how EU politics impacts them, MEP Gaby Bischoff reminded the audience that the public can verify how their representatives voted on different topics to see whether the vote matches what candidates wrote in their manifestos.

IGBCE union board member Francesco Grioli explained that they often deal with people who expect that unions should avoid discussing politics as it’s not their job. However, he countered that they are very dependent on how political systems function. He also said unions must also be defenders of democracy.

“We can’t be, and [we] can’t be allowed to be politically neutral in this regard,” Grioli said.

[By Christoph Schwaiger I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]

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