IR Notes

As announced in our previous edition, the bad news keeps on coming as regards the adoption of directives seeking a little more social justice. On 28 February, Member States’ representatives rejected the compromise text negotiated between the Council and the European Parliament on the due diligence directive (see IR Notes 221). The attitude adopted by Member States infuriated MEP Lara Wolters (S&D), who is Parliament’s rapporteur and negotiator for this proposal: “EU companies have the right to exploit children, to destroy forests (…). To be perfectly clear, this is not my opinion, but it’s what Emmanuel Macron, Georgia Meloni and Christian Lindner [the German Finance Minister] have been fighting over in recent weeks”. Before the compromise was adopted, the Council secured agreement for the financial sector to be excluded from the directive’s scope of application, in line with the wishes of France, following lobbying by its large banking groups. According to various sources, this time, France tried to convince Member States to raise the workforce threshold, so that the directive would only apply to companies with 5,000 or more employees (as against the figure of 500 or more in the compromise) – a move that would have excluded 80% of companies from its scope of application. Germany opted to abstain, as did Italy, despite being in favour of the directive just a few weeks ago. In total, around ten countries withdrew their support for the text, despite voting for it in late December. Noting that Member States abstained “for various reasons (legal uncertainty, the administrative burden involved, fears of unequal treatment at global level…)”, the Belgian presidency of the EU nevertheless still believes “there is a clear desire for legislation on this very important subject”. However, time is now running out to pass this law before Parliament reaches the end of its term, especially since – as Lara Wolters explained at a press conference – the Council has not put forward any alternative proposals. The MEP condemned this “irresponsible” attitude, which is giving rise to “chaos”. Referring to a “minority of companies” exercising influence over the Council and Member States, Lara Wolters set out her views, denouncing the German (BDI) and French (Medef) employers’ organisations for using the full extent of their influence to torpedo this law. Consequently, in the space of just a few months, the special interests of a few will have taken precedence over the law-making work undertaken at the European institutions, with a view to protecting platform workers and holding European companies liable. The same approach led to the failure of the negotiations on the European agreement on telework and the right to disconnect. It remains to be seen whether the Belgian presidency will succeed in making Member States see sense again, notably on 11 March, when the Council’s agenda includes adoption of the platform directive. The chances of success are slim, and the prospect of granting protection to millions of workers in the EU and around the world is slipping away. Moreover, there is every indication that social justice will not be very high on the agenda of the next European Parliament.

> See also: reactions of the European Trade Union Confederation (see press release) and IndustriAll Europe (see press release)

Health and safety: : The Council has definitively adopted the proposal for a directive that will reduce the limit values for exposure to lead and introduce limit values for diisocyanates (see IR Notes 202, 214 and 219). Member states will have two years to transpose this directive, which will be published shortly, into their domestic law (see press release and Carcinogens directive revision).

Strikes and the single market : On 1 February, the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on adoption of the regulation for a single market emergency instrument (SMEI) (see final compromise text). This law is designed to allow the EU to respond to the effects of future crises, by guaranteeing an internal market that ensures the stability of supply chains for critical goods and services (see press release). It retains a strike exemption provision present in the original 1998 regulation, so that exercising the right to strike cannot be deemed an obstacle to free movement, justifying the intervention of Member States to end such a strike. This exemption was removed in an initial version of the text, but was then reinstated at the request of the European trade union movement, which feared that the right to strike might be impaired (see IndustriAll Europe press release).

• Equal treatment : On 20 February, the Council adopted two proposals for a directive to strengthen the role of equality bodies across the EU. After the formal vote held in the European Parliament, both directives – one aimed at equal treatment of men and women, the other at other types of discrimination – are due to be adopted in May and published soon afterwards (see press release).

Support for redundant employees : On 29 February, the European Commission proposed two interventions by the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund: firstly to support 835 German steelworkers dismissed by steel tubes producer Vallourec, after the company decided to close its German tube mills and move production to Brazil (see press release); and secondly, 390 workers dismissed by Danish Crown, after the meat company closed its slaughterhouse in Denmark (see press release).

Collective redundancy : The Court of Justice has specified the point at which an employer is required to enter into consultation with workforce representatives, when it is planning job losses. This case concerns a hotel company that employed 43 people at its central offices. It decided to transfer the management of 13 of its 20 establishments to another operator – a move that meant cutting the size of its central offices’ workforce. In the first instance, the employer asked these staff whether they were willing to fill 10 job vacancies that the new operator might have. Subsequently, 9 employees were dismissed for economic reasons. They believed that the employer had acted fraudulently in artificially encouraging voluntary departures of some workers in order to avoid carrying out a procedure for collective redundancy. Their appeal was rejected on the ground that the number of dismissals (9) did not meet the thresholds at which the procedure for collective redundancy became obligatory. The Court of Justice has already indicated that “a consultation which began when a decision making such collective redundancies necessary had already been taken could not usefully involve any examination of conceivable alternatives with the aim of avoiding them” (CJEU, 10 September 2009, Case  C‑44/08, K.L). This time, it held that under Article 2, paragraph 1, of Directive 98/59 of 20 July 1998 (see Collective redundancy), the consultation obligation arises when the employer “contemplates or plans a reduction of employment positions, the number of which may exceed” the thresholds for job losses fixed by the directive “and not when, after having adopted measures involving the reduction of that number, the employer became certain that it would in fact have to dismiss a number of workers greater than those fixed by the latter provision” (CJEU, 22 February 2024, Case  C‑589/22, Resorts Mallorca Hotels International).

Termination of a fixed-term employment contract : An employee recruited on a fixed-term contract was dismissed during the course of this contract. The employer gave the notice period required under Polish law, but offered no explanation in the letter of dismissal. The former employed believes that the absence of such information infringed the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in EU law and in Polish law, since that obligation exists in the event of termination of employment contracts concluded for an indefinite period. The Court of Justice finds that this constitutes discrimination, for which the Polish government can provide no valid justification. The Court rules that clause 4 of the framework agreement on fixed-term employment contracts, concluded on 18 March 1999, must be interpreted as “precluding national legislation under which an employer is not required to state, in writing, the reasons for the termination of a fixed-term employment contract with a notice period, although it is bound by such an obligation in the event of termination of an employment contract of indefinite duration”. The Court also calls on the national court to apply Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to set aside the national provision that is contrary to EU law (see CJEU, 20 February 2024, Case  C‑715/20, K.L).

Temporary agency work : : The Court of Justice has issued a ruling concerning equal treatment of temporary workers and permanent employees of a user undertaking, as provided for by Directive 91/383/EEC of 25 June 1991, concerning a temporary agency worker who was involved in an accident at work and was declared to be suffering from a total permanent incapacity to carry out his usual occupation. He was then awarded 10,500 euros compensation under the collective temporary agency work agreement applicable in Spain. However, had he been a permanent employee of the user undertaking, he would have received, for the same reasons, compensation amounting to 60,101.21 euros under the collective agreement applicable in the transport sector. The Court of Justice points out that the existence of a temporary employment relationship cannot justify different treatment with respect to working conditions, especially since temporary agency workers are, in certain sectors, more exposed to the risk of accidents at work than other workers. If, in the event of an accident at work, the financial risk for user undertakings were lower as regards those workers compared with the workers they recruit directly, those undertakings “would be less encouraged to invest in the safety of temporary agency workers, which would undermine” the objective of health and safety. While it is true that a collective bargaining agreement specific to temporary workers may apply, this agreement must guarantee the “overall protection of temporary workers”: they must be granted advantages in terms of basic working and employment conditions which are such as to compensate for the difference in treatment they suffer. It is for the national court to determine whether this is the case. If these advantages are not granted, the Court holds that this difference in treatment would be a breach of EU law (CJEU, 22 February 2024, Case  C-649/22, Randstad Empleo ETT SAU).

• Packaging: UNI Europa and Intergraf, which are European social partners in the packaging printing industry, have issued a joint statement on the review of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Legislation in line with the EU Green Deal (see press release).


• Commerce: European social partners in the commerce sector have adopted their work programme 2024-2025, which includes signing several joint statements or declarations, including one on protecting commerce workers from violence and harassment at the workplace.

Trade union and activists campaign for the climate : On 1 March, the service industries’ trade union federation ver.di and climate militants organised a day of mobilisation in more than 100 towns and cities, as part of their campaign for a socially just and climate-friendly “mobility turning point”. The alliance between these two forces aims to secure additional structural financing from the authorities to improve the public transport offering (see press release).

Algorithms : On 26 February, the Minister of Employment and the Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, and her US counterpart, Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su, signed a Declaration on Algorithmic Bias in the World of Work, calling on the international community to evaluate the ethical impact of the use of automated systems and algorithms in the world of work (see press release).

Parental leave : The Minister of the Family, Labour and Social Policy, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, has set up a working party comprised of experts and social partners, which is aimed at enhancing the leave entitlements of parents of premature babies and babies hospitalised following their birth, after 16,000 people signed a petition (see press release).

Menopause : On 22 February, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published Menopause in the workplace: Guidance for employers, a resource designed to help employers understand their legal obligations in relation to supporting workers experiencing symptoms linked to the menopause and perimenopause. The guidance points out that if menopause symptoms have a long-term and substantial impact on a woman’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, they could be considered a disability. In this case, the employer will be under a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments. They will also be under a legal obligation to not directly or indirectly discriminate because of the disability. The guidance further states that the women concerned may also be protected from direct and indirect discrimination, as well as harassment and victimisation, on the grounds of age and sex.

Restructuring : The Unilever European Works Council has entered into consultations on the proposed sale of the Elida Beauty business to the US investment fund Yellow Wood. “Employees and their representatives heard the news via the press at the end of December”, says EWC secretary Hermann Soggeberg, who is setting the EWC the objective “of protecting the employees concerned as far possible”, with a view to ensuring that their working conditions remain unchanged and supporting local negotiations wherever possible.

> See also : the agreement on the establishment of the EWC of Technip Energies.

Freedom of association : On 1 March, the Uni Global Union federation and the CIRSA group (13,338 employees, including 4,434 in Spain), which manages casinos, signed a global framework agreement recognising the principles of freedom of association and collective bargaining (see UNI Global Union press release). In terms of the area of dispute resolution, this is the second global agreement, after the one signed with Orpéa in 2022, to use the mediation and arbitration mechanism laid down by the International Labour Arbitration and Conciliation (ILAC) rules.

> See also: On 24 January, the IUF international trade union federation signed a joint memorandum of understanding on trade union rights with Lipton Teas and Infusions.

A collective dispute : On 20 February, several trade union federations (PSI, IndustriAll Global Union, EPSU, IndustriAll Europe) sent a letter to the management of the Italian group ENEL, supporting the mobilisation of their Italian affiliates (Filctem-CGIL, Flaei-CISL and Uiltec-UIL) against a reorganisation linked to the new strategic plan. The signatories say they are “shocked to learn that ENEL, in violation of the Global Framework Agreement (GFA) and the European Works Council Agreement, is making decisions that have severe negative impacts on the working conditions of ENEL workers without their participation in decision-making” (see EPSU press release). Although no job losses are planned, the company has emphasised in the Italian press that it “has never walked away from the negotiating table and has always remained open to dialogue and ready to hold discussions aimed at finding solutions combining flexibility and efficiency”.