GDF Suez Transnational Collective Agreement on Health and Safety: EWC as negotiating agent and the relevance of the ETUF leading role. WP CSDLE “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 119/2015

Frosecchi, Giulia (2015) GDF Suez Transnational Collective Agreement on Health and Safety: EWC as negotiating agent and the relevance of the ETUF leading role. WP CSDLE “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 119/2015. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed a general liberalisation of markets and the creation of multinational companies (MNCs) as global players. This tendency is even stronger in Europe. Indeed, the European Single Market (1992) with its four economic freedoms, free movement of goods, capital, services and persons, implies that companies operating in Europe can move and merge without, almost, any restraint. The growing number of multinational companies has raised the necessity to create new players and develop strategies from the employee side, to prevent the undermining of European workers’ rights, which is one of the side-effects of the regime shopping strategy often used by the MNCs. As a response to this scenario, “a new transnational collective autonomy is slowly emerging” (Sciarra 2009). A European form of trade unionism has started consolidating since the beginning of the 1990s. In those years, European Trade Union Federations (ETUFs), at the time called European Industry Federations (EIFs), have strengthen, by increasing the number of affiliates, of total membership and enlarging the geographical scope, with the support of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). However, ETUFs are not constantly present at (multinational) company level, indeed that is the role European Works Councils (EWCs). The 1994 directive provided for the establishment of EWCs in those MNCs having some specific features. The aim of the directive was to give a voice to the European workforce within the multinational companies, as to try to influence transnational corporate decision making (Mueller et al. 2010). EWCs enjoy the right to information and consultation and their composition is basically chosen on a case-by-case basis. A relationship between ETUFs and EWCs does exist, however it is not linear and the respective roles are not clearly defined yet.

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