IR Notes

On 3 October, in connection with the renewal of the global agreement (*) concluded between the Carrefour group and the Uni Global Union federation (see press releases issued by Uni Global Union and Carrefour), the signatories appended a European Works Council declaration “addressing the issue of violence against women at work” to the agreement, (see “A question for…”). As far as we are aware, this is the first time that this theme has been broached in the context of global social dialogue. The signatories point out that, according to UN Women, one in three of the world’s women suffers domestic violence, of either a physical, sexual or psychological nature. This means that potentially, across the group as a whole, one third of the group’s 160,000 female employees may be affected. The text emphasises the need for training, and to organise awareness-raising actions. The declaration calls on employers not to punish a female employee on grounds of incompetence before first satisfying themselves that such shortcomings are not linked to a “personal problem” and to “show empathy, listen and be on the alert if they observe changes in a female employee’s behaviour”. The signatories also call on people to reject “sexist or degrading comments and behaviour aimed at women in the workplace” and to refuse to let these become commonplace. Actions will be monitored by a European Works Council working party, which will meet three times a year. Speaking at the signature ceremony of the global framework agreement, Guy Ryder, Director-General of the ILO, described the initiative as “ground-breaking”.
> See also: commitments on preventing sexual harassment at Sodexo and Unilever.

(*) These texts are not available.

Workers’ exposure to diesel engine exhaust gases: discussions are being held between the European Commission, Council and Parliament (as part of a trilogue) with a view to adopting the second revision of Directive 2004/37 of 29 April on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens or mutagens at work. On 26 September, the Commission announced its support for the compromise proposal put forward by the Austrian Presidency of the EU, which involves adopting an amendment to bring diesel engine emissions within the scope of application of the directive and, as requested by Parliament, setting an occupational exposure limit value of 0.05 mg/m³, which corresponds to the standard in force in Germany. Applying this exposure threshold should enable 6,000 cancer deaths to be prevented each year.

• Exposure to formaldehyde: within the framework of the third revision of Directive 2004/37 of 29 April 2004 (see above), the European social partners in the furniture sector have adopted a joint position to support the limit values for exposure to formaldehyde proposed by the European Commission.

• Brexit and European Works Councils: in anticipation of the consequences of Brexit, the European trade union federations have published joint recommendations, seeking to ensure that British delegations keep their place on existing European Works Councils and European Company (“SE”) Works Councils, and that the subject of Brexit systematically appears on the agenda of meetings held by European Works Councils and SE Works Councils.

The notion of night work for women who are pregnant, have recently given birth or are breastfeeding: a female Spanish employee working as a security guard at a shopping centre in the context of shift work, which resulted in her having to work nights, asked for a medical certificate to be issued, so that she could be released from night work. In her view, this posed a risk to her breastfeeding. Directive 92/85 of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding, grants protection against night work but without specifying which working period it relates to. The Court of Justice therefore turned to Directive 2003/88/EC of 4 November 2003 (organisation of working time) to interpret the notion of night work appearing in Directive 92/85. The Court holds that it follows from the provisions of Directive 2003/88 that “a worker who […] does shift work in the context of which only part of her duties are performed at night must be regarded as performing work during ‘night time’ and must therefore be classified as a ‘night worker’”. (CJEU, 19 September 2018, case C-41/17, Isabel Gonzalez Castros).

• Agreement reached on an increase in the minimum wage: On 1 October, the social partners decided to raise the minimum wage by 40 euros. From 1 January 2019, it will rise to 540 euros per month (3.21 euros per hour). The decision was taken following a public consultation at which it was decided that the minimum wage was too low.

Fixed amounts of damages payable in the event of unjustified dismissal: On 26 September, the Constitutional Council  issued a ruling, censuring a provision of the 2015 labour law reforms (the “Jobs Act”) that introduced a sliding scale for damages payable by the employer in the event of unjustified dismissal. The courts will now be able to adjust the amount of compensation provided for by law (which was previously between 6 and 36 months’ wages, and was based primarily on the employee’s length of service), so that other criteria, such as family responsibilities, conditions in the local employment market and the parties’ behaviour during the course of the working relationship and the trial, are taken into account.

New agreement: On 25 September, the Spanish textile group Inditex (171,839 employees), which owns the Zara and Massimo Dutti brands, signed an agreement on the creation of a European Works Council. The group had already signed a global framework agreement with the Uni Global Union federation, back in 2009. The agreement stipulates that only trade union members or workforce representatives can sit on the council. Consequently, a group of around ten countries will be represented on the council, pending the establishment of trade unions or workforce representation bodies in countries that do not currently have one.  The agreement grants Switzerland and Turkey a seat on the council as observers, once the agreement has been in place for three years. “The council will also be able to vote on its own operating budget from year 2 onwards, thus granting it a certain level of autonomy”, explains Laila Castaldo, Uni Global Union coordinator.

Trends in employment and skills: On 30 May, the management of the Veolia group and its European Works Council signed a letter of commitment from management that contains ten commitments made in order to anticipate support for employees in developing their skills, career paths and mobility. Country HR Managers and employee representatives will have to place the emphasis on two of the ten commitments.
> In brief: the trade union federations IndustriAll Global Union and IndustriAll Europe have organised a seminar on the application of the global framework agreements signed at Asos, H&M and Inditex to the 600,000 people employed in the textile and footwear sector in the countries of South-East Europe, where the minimum wage is sometimes 200 euros per month, i.e. one half of the minimum wage paid in some regions of China (see press release)

A hearing at the European Commission: a delegation of European trade union officials from the steelmaking group ArcelorMittal has visited the European Commission to discuss the consequences of the takeover of Italian steel producer Ilva by ArcelorMittal (see IndustriAll Europe press release).  ”The aim”, explains Luis Colunga, IndustriAll Europe’s Deputy General Secretary, ”is to ensure that DG Competition takes account both of workers’ interests and of ArcelorMittal’s long-term development, including those sites that are to be sold off. We also emphasised DG Competition’s responsibility in terms of guaranteeing jobs and the long-term future of the sites being sold off, because they are being sold off as a direct result of the competition analyses performed by the Commission”. IndustriAll is unhappy about these disposals, and argues that they are based on “the nonsensical application of a European competition law that is completely outdated: by focusing solely on the internal market, it overlooks the fact that our industries are developing as part of a globalised economy”. The delegation was also seeking transparency in the divestment process, and wanted in particular to find out what criteria the DG Competition had based its analysis on for the purpose of determining whether the would-be new owner was a “good” company.