A majority of multinational companies have kept their British representatives on the EWC

At the time of Brexit, which marked the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, any group that had established a European Works Council was obliged to adopt one of several positions, and choose: either to keep the British on board, as before; or to exclude them; or to grant them a minor role as observers or guests but without any voting rights; or lastly, to abolish their EWC altogether, on the basis that the workforce thresholds warranting its creation were no longer met.
In addition, the 180 or so non-EU multinational companies that had chosen to locate their representative in the United Kingdom, for the purpose of establishing the EWC, had to make a decision and choose which country they should transfer their representative to. So, more than four years after this earthquake, how have companies positioned themselves?
On the last point, Ireland has gained many of the companies whose representative was previously located in the United Kingdom. How many? The latest statistics published on line by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) estimate that 48 EWCs are now operating under Irish law, whereas the figures of between 100 (SIPTU, 2021) and 200 EWCs (CFTC, 2024) established in Ireland are frequently cited. The data therefore needs to be refined.
As for the fate of the British representatives previously present on 70% of EWCs (De Spiegelaere and Jagodzinski 2020), a study performed by IRES and presented on 3 April this year (see presentation), provides some answers. Taking a sample of 64 multinational companies whose EU legal representative was based in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, only in a tiny number of cases (2) has Brexit represented an innovation opportunity to expand – rather than scale back – the EWC’s perimeter.
A majority of EWCs (32) have opted for stability, usually by means of an addendum to the founding agreement or within the context of its global renegotiation. In this scenario, management and EWC representatives agree to maintain the existing situation, by keeping on their British representatives, and maintaining all of their rights.
In a number of other cases (13), their participation has been downgraded, with a sole British representative continuing to be involved in the EWC, and with limited rights, acting as an observer or guest. In this scenario, the United Kingdom is often excluded from the transnational scope of application of the European Works Council agreement. Lastly, 17 groups have chosen to simply exclude the United Kingdom from the agreement’s scope of application, and British members left the EWC on 1 January 2021.
Also worthy of note is the choice made by some companies to keep the British representatives on temporarily, until the end of their current term. As a result, several of these groups have recently had to take a position.
One such company was Aptar, which adopted an addendum to its agreement, keeping its British representatives on the EWC on a permanent basis, and another was Sanofi, where an addendum to this effect was signed on 19 June