Report of the European Works Council survey

Guests Ron van Baden (leader of the union FNV Bondgenoten) and Wim Kooijman (P&O director at KLM), place their own experiences next to those of European Works Council members.

Frans van Kollem (St. Gobain) felt that overemphasising 'cultural differences, can lead to generalisations. He feels that some misunderstandings can be avoided by communicating carefully and taking into account different use of language. His point was acknowledged. Jan Lautenbach (Aegon) pleaded in favour or not just waiving interpreters. Perhaps even more important is taking the time to check whether everyone means the same. At Air France/KLM (which has a European Works Council with nineteen nationalities), HR manager Kooijman discovered that this was one of the strengths of the Dutch: 'We’re good at making what is going on explicit and why people think what they think is. However Kooijman did acknowledge that even with Dutch presidency 'his' European Works Council has not always been free of confusion and misunderstanding.

Long wind
Kooijman himself turned out to be a fan of cool analyses of interests. 'If there are no similarities in interests, a European Works Council simply has fewer points of departure, you have to be level-headed about it,’ he said. This does not detract from the fact that his company feels it is unacceptable if managers avoid the European Works Council. Ron van Baden said it was different at Philips. The union leader was very direct in saying that he thinks the European Works Council at that company is not very strong. There are objective reasons for this. The departure of a number of experienced members of the European Works Council, including as a result of selling off company parts, is one of them. A more structural cause is that Philips is a 'conglomerate-like’ company that operates worldwide, where employees in Maarheze sometimes have more in common with colleagues in China than in Eindhoven. 'Europe' is not even a separate level in the company’s decision-making structure. But Van Baden also felt that the way in which the European Works Council itself functions has shortcomings, since in his eyes the company management has been given too much influence and the trade unions find fewer members than used to be the case. Van Baden did slightly put his story into perspective by saying that European employee participation is a long-winded work, whereby every step forward is a step in the right direction. But he also said that the trade union does not have a lot of say at the moment because other topics have priority. 'Now in my work as a Union Officer I am ruled by reorganisations.'

Legislator
The discussion afternoon confirmed that there are major differences between European Works Councils. That also applies for relations between a European Works Council member and his European directors (and supervisory directors!). It depends on all kinds of factors, including personal ones.

Alfred Velgersdijk, the representative of the Ministry for Social Affairs and Employment, asked the question of whether informal relations are in fact not more important than legislation. To which Sjef Stoop replied: 'I do hope that the Ministry is not going to jump to the wrong conclusions as a result of this discussion and will interpret the procedural conditions for an effective European Works Council properly.' The underlying reason for this comment: after adopting the amended European Works Council directive, the member states have until May 2011 to implement the changes to their national legislation.

After a direct question from European Works Council members, Velgersdijk explained that the Ministry thinks it will need the entire period. In addition, Minister Donner is working on reviewing the participation rights of employees in the Netherlands, after a recommendation by the SER about 'balanced company management’. Velgersdijk: 'In complex companies, and certainly if they operate across borders, there is a problem with gearing employee participation to control. Amongst other things, a document will be published about that at the end of this year. There are no expectations for a new bill such as the WMW [Employee Participation Act]. But it may well be that the Minister will suggest to amend the Dutch Works Council Act on a few items.' To a follow-up question Velgersdijk replied that the Netherlands is following the new European Works Council Directive, but feels that the new Directive does not have room for going beyond that. In his opinion social partners actually have, because of their personal contacts with both EWC members and Management, more opportunities to take employee participation to a higher level than the Ministry does.

In the corridors Velgersdijk said that the Netherlands will not give priority to stricter sanctions during the implementation of the new European Works Council directive. 'Experiences with the Dutch Works Council Act have already proven that it is difficult to improve compliance in this way.'