Description

The European Company Statute came into force in EU Member States in October 2004. The associated Directive on employee involvement in European Companies (SEs) is the first time European legislation has recognised employee board-level participation. This issue of Transfer examines such participation, the importance of the SE Directive and its implications for industrial relations and corporate governance in Europe.

The various contributors examine the history of employee board-level participation in Europe and the current position following the transposition of the SE Directive into national legislation, as well as European company law directives and how these affect the interests of workers. The issue also publishes the initial results of a survey of employee board-level representatives from nine EU Member States. An article on the European Metalworkers Federation's binding guidelines for negotiations on the establishment of an SE highlights the need not just to export any particular national system of participation to the European level but rather to create a new European solution.

This issue is a timely contribution to the current debates on corporate governance within the EU and on the merits of the German system of co-determination.

Coordinators

Collaborators

Table of contents

Editorial

Main articles

• Robert Taylor: Industrial democracy and the European traditions

• Norbert Kluge: Corporate governance with co-determination - a key element of the European social model

• Robbert van het Kaar: Company law and workers' interests

• Ulke Veersma and Sjef Swinkels: Participation in European Companies: views from social partners in three Member States

• Luc Triangle: Workers' involvement in the European Company - the SE Guidelines of the European Metalworkers Federation

• Kevin O'Kelly: A European project for employee board-level representatives: issues, roles and responsibilities

• Mark Carley: Board-level employee representatives in nine countries: a snapshot

Click here for summaries of the main articles

News and background

• Forthcoming TUAC report on corporate governance - building a common trade union platform for reform
  (Pierre Habbard)
  

• Between 'beneficial constraints' and 'regime competition'. The dilemmas of the transposition into national legislation of the Directive on employee involvement in the European Company (SE)
  (Lorenzo Bordogna)
  

• Theses for a European minimum wage policy
  (Thorsten Schulten)
  

• The EMF European Company Policy: the GME Restructuring and Framework Agreement
  (Chantal Caron and Rainer Weinert)
  

• Rejection of the European Constitution must prompt re-think of economic and employment policies
  (Andrew Watt)
  

Book reviews

• Bruce E. Kaufman
  The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations - Events, Ideas and the IIRA(Two reviews by Gian Primo Cella and Kevin O'Kelly)
  

• Bill Jordan and Franck Düvell
  Irregular Migration. The Dilemmas of Transnational Mobility
  (Antonio Martín Artiles)
  

• Donald Phares
  Metropolitan Governance without Metropolitan Government?
  (Otto Jacobi)
  

• Where have all the babies gone? Review of Industrial Relations in Europe 2004, report by Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs, European Commission
  (Herman Knudsen)
  

• M. Pohlmann, D. Sauer, G. Trautwein-Kalms and A. Wagner (eds.)
  Dienstleistungsarbeit - auf dem Boden der Tatsachen(Ursula Holtgrewe)
  

Reports

• Taking responsibility for an enterprise, but in a different way
  Seminar organised with worker board members,
  Berlin, 3 and 4 February 2005
  (Norbert Kluge and Roland Köstler)
  

• Learning from each other
  Exchange on legislation and the practice of board-level participation throughout
  Europe
  (Michael Stollt and Norbert Kluge)
  

• Political state of play concerning the Tenth Company Law Directive on cross-border mergers
  The 'or' remains an 'or' (and has not been changed into an 'and'), but the '500' and the '33% or 1/3' are still there
  (Norbert Kluge and Johannes Heuschmid)
  

Reviews