Debate: European framework for employees' participation rights and the revision of the European Works Council Directive
Date: TUESDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2021
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

Our policy responses will have to address major labour market and social challenges, especially when it comes to ensuring access to the labour market and fair working conditions for future generations. There are many elements contributing to enhanced democracy at the workplace. Information and consultation, direct participation, indirect participation to workers’ representatives, board-level representation, financial participation and collective bargaining. They are all aspects that belong to what we consider to be the social market economy.  The report touches on many of these topics, because democracy at work cannot be achieved through one tool or legal instrument only. It requires a combination of legal provisions on how companies are governed, a functioning and well-developed social dialogue, but also good faith and trust.  Social dialogue is one of the cornerstones of democracy at work, and the COVID-19 crisis showed that social dialogue is an essential tool, also for crisis management and for finding effective mitigation and recovery policies. We need a strong involvement of social partners to make sure that the transitions to a climate-neutral and digital economy will be successful.  This means that their impact on jobs and on the organisation and strategies of companies affects all the stakeholders. At the same time, the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan and the Achievement of the EU 2030 targets on employment skills and poverty reduction also needs a strong involvement of social partners. To support social dialogue at European and national level, the Commission will present a new social dialogue initiative in autumn 2022, and we will of course ensure close involvement of social partners in the preparations. We all know about the challenges national social dialogue is facing. To address these challenges, the Commission is also planning to propose a Council recommendation on the role of social partners accompanying the Social Dialogue Initiative. There are obviously limits for any EU action targeting national social dialogue given the autonomy of social partners, but the EU has several instruments at its disposal to support Member States, such as our funding instruments for supporting capacity-building. There is no effective social dialogue without representative social partners’ organisations on the workers’ side, as well as on the employers’ side.  An extensive legal framework is in place at the EU level and the workers’ involvement in companies. It continues to apply when companies undergo restructurings or adaptations, whether it is in reaction to the pandemic, to globalisation, digitalisation and greening of the economy, or any other change in a company’s market or strategy. I wrote a letter to all Member States at the end of last year to stress these precise points. When facing an emergency such as the pandemic and the huge changes in working conditions that it has caused, it is all the more important that workers’ rights to information and consultation are respected, even if the form may have to be adapted, for instance with virtual instead of physical meetings.  The first 2013 fitness check of the three directives on worker information and consultation at national level led to an overall positive assessment, and this general conclusion was shared by the European social partners, as well as by the Member States. But what concerns representation of workers on companies’ boards? Harmonisation in this area was attempted in the past without success. Now we have 27 different systems, and it is quite difficult to come to a solution given that this requires unanimous adoption in Council. There will be perhaps one day an intergovernmental conference to change this because unanimity here is obviously blocking any progress.  I also want to say what you have noticed in your report is that it has to be guaranteed that if companies transform or become more European because they may change the place they operate from, the acquis in terms of co- determination existing in one Member State should not be lost or diluted. The Commission will assess the need for more harmonised EU rules on employee participation in the context of the evaluation of the 2019 Directive on cross-border convergence, mergers and divisions.  One of the key topics of the report is, of course, the European Works Council Directive. The Commission reviewed its implementation in 2018 and concluded not to launch a further revision of the 2009 recast directive, which was a result of delicate compromise, but to rather support the implementation of the existing rules and pursue in compliance on a case-by-case basis.  I fully concur with the importance of awareness-raising in this area. The Commission already funds an annual European works council conference organised by the European Trade Union Confederation. We stand ready to discuss with social partners how to improve the uptake of the European works councils, as around half of the eligible multinationals currently have one, and how to maximise their potential for workers and employers.  Apart from already mentioned planned and ongoing initiatives, I would like to recall that the proposal for a directive for adequate minimum wages in the European Union includes provisions requiring all Member States to make efforts to improve the coverage of collective bargaining and strengthen social dialogue. The proposal for a directive on improving working conditions in platform work, adopted last week, introduces an obligation on digital labour platforms to inform and consult their workers and workers’ representatives of substantial changes to automated monitoring and decision-making systems, thus enabling platform workers to negotiate the algorithm. Also, digital labour platforms will have to create digital communication channels to which platform workers and their representatives will have the possibility to exchange information and organise themselves.  Another element of the platform work package is the draft guidelines on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements, which aim to make it easier for self-employed people to engage in collective bargaining. I am aware that the European Parliament will soon start to prepare a legislative own-initiative report on the revision of the European Works Council Directive.  For the Sustainable Corporate Governance Initiative envisaged in the first quarter of 2022, we are looking into effective, efficient, proportionate and feasible solutions on possible EU-wide rules on corporate due diligence to address adverse impacts in the company’s own operations and its value chains.  The economy is changing fast and steadily, and we need more innovation and investments in people skills, and therefore there is a real need for rethinking companies’ governance and purpose, and your report surely contributes to this reflection.