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UNI-Europa welcomes European Commission’s decision to revise the EWC directive. Unfortunately it was not possible to achieve a solid negotiating basis with the European employers in order to enable the revision to take place within the framework of the social dialogue.



However, the revision of the EWC directive is necessary to ensure effective implementation of workers’ information and consultation rights. The potential of EWCs in anticipating and managing change still remains unexploited. The main issues, which require improvements in the EWC directive, are:



1. harmonized definitions of ‘information’ and ‘consultation’ corresponding to subsequent legislation (specifically the ‘SE Directive’);

2. recognized role of trade unions and the right of SNBs and EWCs to have a trade union officer assist them in all aspects of their work;

3. improve working conditions for SNBs and EWC through e.g. right to training, more plenary meetings with follow-up meetings, clearer rules on experts, interpretation and translation of documents, access to workplaces and additional subjects in the subsidiary requirements;

4. legal personality and the right to sanctions to EWCs in case of infringements so that employers can be taken to Court;

5. access of 'smaller' companies to European information and consultation rights by reducing the thresholds for the number of employees;



The legal work programme of the Commission schedules the revision of the EWC directive until the end of the year. In order to enable the European Parliament and the Council to adopt it by then, the Commission needs to present a revised directive in early June 2008.



UNI-Europa urges the Commission to proceed with the legislative process to revise the EWC directive, thus strengthening the European social model.