European Works Councils: Managing transnational employee representation, How to effectively address the challenge of European Works Councils

With the support of the European Commission (DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion), ASTREES (France), EWC Services SBI Training en Advies & FNV Formaat (The Netherlands) and IR Share (France) carried out a project in 2015/2016 aiming at the promotion of good practises in managing European Works Councils.
The European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services (CEEP- Brussels) and the Dutch Employers’ Organisation (AWVN) supported this project and mandated the project partners to organise three workshops. Each workshop brought together HR managers in charge of running EWCs from different countries, sectors and groups. Each event was focused on a specific theme. Finally, a final event brought together HR managers and employee reps in different EWCs to share the lessons learnt from the previous workshops.
This handbook is the outcome of this exciting project. It aims at bringing light to these difficult issues to HR managers but also employee reps at different levels (European for sure, but also national or local). We hope it will be useful to any stakeholder involved in the functioning of European Works Councils.
The project partners share a strong belief in the added value of constructive dialogue on transnational topicsinamultinationalcompany. Theybelievethatinvolvingemployeesinanearlystagewilllead to a better decision-making – process and create financially stronger companies.