The implementation of the European Works Councils directive

Abstract

Following the reversal of its opt-out from the EU 'social chapter', the UK has become the most recent Member State to introduce measures to implement the 1994 European Works Councils Directive. This article gives an overview of the extensive body of EWC agreements prompted by the Directive and of the Europe-wide transposition process, and examines the approach taken by the UK's Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 1999 on key issues such as employee representation, confidentiality and the status and enforcement of agreements. It concludes that the Regulations represent a further landmark in the 'Europeanisation' of UK labour law by extending statutory rights to information and consultation and providing for standing works-council-type bodies, albeit on a transnational basis. However, workforce-wide ballots for UK members of special negotiating bodies and statutory EWCs will not guarantee effective articulation between European-level representation structures within an enterprise and those that exist in its UK operations.