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Worker Participation

Welcome to the new 2022 Workers' Participation website

This website replaces and builds on the previous version that was operated by the ETUI from 2007 until 2022.

The new website seeks to meet the increasing need for accurate and easily accessible information on issues related to transnational workers’ representation while improving the user experience at the same time.

It provides users with access to what is happening at European level in the field of 'democracy at work', i.e. employees' rights to information, consultation and board-level representation (participation) as well as offers selected insights into relevant developments in national industrial relations.

The website will be gradually developed and improved.
We hope you will enjoy it and if you have any feedback or proposals for improvement, please contact ahoffmann@etui.org

Reasons behind this website

Since the beginning of the European integration process there has been a clear commitment to provide employees in Europe with the right to be involved in company decision-making. From the 1970s this has led to the adoption of a number of European directives supplementing and enhancing national worker participation rights. Not least wWith the recognition of workers’ rights to information and consultation as EU fundamental rights (TFEU), adoption of the European Works Council Directives (94/45/EC and the Recast 2009/38/EC), the European Company (SE) Directive (2001/86/EC) and the Framework Directive (2002/14/EC) on information and consultation, and other legal instruments (not least in the health and safety area) the relevance of the European legislation has significantly increased.

With more and more companies operating Europe-wide (or even globally) as well as with the ever increasing degree of restructuring affecting companies and their workers the transnational level of employee interest representation is becoming more and more increasingly important. This To meet the challenge requires that company management, employee representatives and their trade unions effectively deal deal increasingly with cross-border questions of worker participation on different levels.

This website seeks to meet the increasing need for accurate and easily accessible information on issues related to transnational workers’ representation.by giving its users It provides users with access to what is happening at European level in the field of employees' rights to information, consultation and board-level representation (participation) as well as offers selected insights into relevant developments in national industrial relations.

Information available on worker-participation.eu includes:

European Works Councils (EWC) and SE Works Councils (SEWC)
European Company (SE)/European Cooperative Society (SCE)
Board-level Employee Representation
Information, Consultation & Participation Framework
Corporate Governance & EU Company Law
EU Social Dialogue
EU-27 National Industrial Relations
EU Social Dialogue

The website also provides you with information on the EU-27 industrial relations backgrounds, which differ significantly from one Member State to another. The website is intended to contribute to a better mutual understanding by offering basic information on all EU Member States in respect of trade unions, collective bargaining, workplace representation, health and safety, board-level representation, and the selection procedures and training rights for EU-level bodies (European Works Councils, SE Works Councils).

With the ‘Compare countries’ tool it is possible to quickly compare countries with regard to one or more of these topics.

Sources for this website's contents

Contents of worker-participation.eu are (among others) results of the work ETUI’s unit ‘Europeanisation of Industrial Relations’ and the expert networks run by the unit staff:

Worker Participation Europe (formerly SEEurope)
the GoodCorp Network
Transnational Trade Union Rights

Highlights

'European Works Councils: contested and still in the makng' by Stan De Spiegelaere, Romuald Jagodziński and Jeremy Waddington

The book also shows that EWCs are contested institutions. BusinessEurope prefers voluntary rather than legislative solutions and, only when politically compelled, enters into meaningful negotiations on legislation with the objective of limiting the coverage of the measure and the obligations it…

EWCs and restructuring: how do they deal with it and how does the Covid-19 induce restructuring (infographics)

With the results of ETUI's large scale survey of 2018 we provide an insight into the extent and the impact of restructuring on EWCs (infographic 1).We also provide an overview of many ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic causes various forms of restructuring and how workers' representation…

'Can anybody hear us?' by Stan De Spiegelaere and Romuald Jagodzinski

Many employee representatives in multinational companies lack basic information about corporate plans, restructuring and workplaces, and lack a dialogue with central management. Employees are left in the dark about financial and economic performance, the situation in other countries and what their…