News

UNI Europa invited affiliates from the Finance and ICTS sectors to learn more about the specific challenges of SE negotiations and practice. Participants from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Malta participated at this training seminar organised in cooperation with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) on 15 and 16 December 2015 in Brussels. Many Finance and IT companies are in a process of transforming into a Societas Europea (SE) based on the European SE directive or have already negotiated a SE agreement. What was clear throughout the workshop was the importance of communication; UNI Europa affiliates sharing best practice and lessons learnt, to ensure that trade unions pool expertise across Europe to develop strategies for developing worker participation in SEs.

Aline Hoffmann of ETUI gave a comprehensive presentation on the legal basis of the SE. She emphasized the need to demystify the concept of SEs and highlighted the parallels to European Works Councils (EWC) and other existing structures of information, consultation and worker participation. Participants voiced the need for further training opportunities on SE in order to better deal with the challenges. UNI Europa will certainly follow up on the topic.