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The four West Eurpean banks are the key players of the industry in Central and Eastern Europe. The workshop included union officers, EWC members as well as Unicredit management.



A main concern of the workshop was to look at the challenges in developing social dialogue and industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe. The debate identified a number of problems. Clearly, the main concern was the weak institutional structures in the region, but also the dominance of foreign companies in the industry.



Colleagues from Central and Eastern Europe also had the feeling that they were not able to influence decisions to the same extent as those from Western Europe. They saw a need for greater support of the European works councils in strengthening industrial relations in their countries.



The workshop set off with each of the four companies introducing a best practice example in their respective industrial relations approach:

• national committees to link to the European works council (KBC)
• employee involvment structure (Nordea)
• cross-national bonus systems (Erste Bank)
• joint declarations on lifelong learning and non-discrimination (UniCredit)

For affiliates, the presentations are available on the meeting page.



Other aspects of the discussions were:

• Developing industrial relations and social dialogue in Central and Eastern Europe at company, sectoral and national level.
• The impact of the financial crisis and how company and workers’ representatives addressed it
• Improving the integration of the region into European-level social dialogue.

The workshop was part of UNI Finance project on a social and ethical finance industry supported financially by the European Commission. It took place in Prague on 6 and 7 October.