Projects
Analysing the functioning of EWC
An overview of the literature on European Works Councils learns us that the empirical research done is limited to surveys and snap-shot case studies recording the practice of EWCs at one fixed point in time. The aim of this project is to analyse and compare developments of EWC practice. Nine European Works Councils have been studied between 2001 and 2005 on the basis of face to face interviews and telephone interviews. Individual case study reports have been developed in 2003. The longitudinal and comparative analysis will be finalised in 2005. The results of this study will then be finalised in a monography in 2006.
European Works Councils database
The European Works Councils database 2006 contains data on over 2200 multinational companies falling with the scope of the EWC directive. It supplies details of EWC agreements already concluded, together with the English text of more than 960 of these agreements.
European Works Councils: Survey
This project sets out to discover what European Works Council representatives think about the institution on which they serve. Questions are asked about the role, agenda, and practices of European Works Councils, together with a series of attitudinal questions about existing practices and how they might be improved. Among the findings unearthed to date are issues of company ownership, the relations between trade unions and EWCs, the training requirements of EWC representatives and difficulties concerning the quality of inormation disclosure and consultation.
EWC Dataservice
The primary objective of the data service project is to generate quantitative information on multinational companies covered by the EWC Directive as well on the European works councils (EWCs) where they exist. The Multinationals Database, which lists all the companies affected by the EWC Directive, and the Full-Text Database, with the English texts of the EWC agreements are merged in 2004 on a single CD-ROM. For the updating and upgrading of this new EWC database on-line consultation with e-mail feed-back forms will be tested.
GOODCORP - What makes a good corporate governance in Europe?
Globalisation puts each national system of industrial relations under pressure. The organisation of enterprise crossover links with an ongoing trend to finance companies from global capital markets require a huge extent of mechanism of monitoring business operations. Managers are asked to implement internally what they provide to the public. This concerns social treatment of their workers as well as ethical and sustainable behaviour of the company. Companies felt forced to report systematically on their 'Corporate Social Responsibility' or to explain their agreement to the principles of the UN-Global Compact, the OECD guidelines on multinationals and on corporate governance or to specific codes of conduct. At least companies may notice positive effects from participation on their economic performance.
GOODCORP - What makes a good corporate governance in Europe?
Major objective of the project is to observe and to assess the activities of the EU Commission, mainly of DG market, in this field of corporate governance in order to provide with topical support and advice from a trade unions point of view.
MANIC - Provisions and practices of Managing Industrial Change with Workers' Involvement
The project aims to link workers' participation to the challenges of workers and their trade unions in the concrete field of industrial change at enterprise level, also by implementing measures of industrial policy. In a European perspective the project prepares examples of restructuring in different cross-border operating enterprises and different places. The case studies will be evaluated against a kind of criteria of social accountability of the change process. Models can be expected how enterprises and their employees can contribute to fill in the European social model concretely and to meet the targets of the Lisbon strategy.
SEEUROPE - The Influence of the EU Directive on Worker Involvement
Major activity of the Seeurope-project is to pursue monitoring the introduction of workers' participation at European level, to collect and present all relevant information on the issue on an particular website of ETUI-REHS www.seeurope-network.org and to invest in conceptual thinking on how workers' participation fits in realization of the European Social model. Analytically, SEEUROPE intends to find out the contribution of workers' board level representation to a Europeanization of industrial relations.
The Impact of the EU Legal Framework on Worker's Participation Practices
In line with the ETUC Action Program on "Expanding and Reinforcing the area of European Industrial Relations" (3) with a view to "Information, consultation and worker participation for managing change" (d) in co-operation with European Industry Federations (EMF and EMCEF) the project is focusing on the way as workers' participation practices will develop in the acceeding CEE countries at the backround of the relevant EU legislation and how these practises will have a feed-back to the European Social Model.
Transfer of Innovative Corporate Cultures
participation-oriented corporate culture as a decisive factor in success - exchange of experience and approaches for development and derivation of participation-oriented corporate cultures to shape the future.
