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Marina Aman joined the IBM European Works Council to help her union members influence major decisions in the software giant. A local union rep, she was elected by her Unionen colleagues in Sweden in 2003. Today she’s not only a member of the EWC, she’s also plugged into IWIS - the IBM Workers International Solidarity network. “In a globally integrated enterprise like IBM you very rapidly realise that if you really want to know what is going on in the company - and if you want to influence major decisions - you have to look higher up the management chain than your local country management.”

About half of EWC members at IBM are union members and Marina informs her fellow union reps about the outcome of each meeting.

More EWC meetings a year would be most helpful to her in her work, she told us.

At the moment at IBM the EWC generally meets twice a year (two days in April and two days plus an education day in October).

“Our biggest challenge as an EWC is being able to speak with one voice towards management. In a group of 19 it’s difficult to build trust and common objectives when you are only allowed to meet twice a year.

“A lack of knowledge about different employee representation systems, language and cultural barriers often lead to misunderstandings.

Swedish law gives unions good access to information so often consultation at the EWC can bring old news for her (although not for other IBM countries).

The company also publishes a lot of information on an Intranet. But, says Marina, the EWC meetings give her the chance to ask the questions that put all that information into context.

“The opportunity to ask questions is very useful when it comes to interpreting and understanding information. And the information I get at the EWC is useful in my local work as union rep in Sweden.

“For instance sometimes local management says this or that has been decided at a pan-European level - my network of EWC members enables me to check if that’s true or if my local management is hiding behind an excuse.”



And the benefits of EWCs?

“I think that the benefits of EWCs are long term. The EWC is an important tool for employee representation because they help us to build international networks.

“In the future a European and global union perspective is necessary - in a global market, workers need to act on a global level.”