IR Notes

• Working conditions in the fishing sector: Directive 2017/159 of 19 December 2016 has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It transposes the agreement of the European social partners in the fishing sector dated 21 May 2012 on the implementation of the ILO convention relating to work in the fishing sector.


• Exposure to chemical agents: Directive 2017/164 of 31 January 2017 has been published, establishing a fourth list of indicative occupational exposure limit values for 31 hazardous chemical agents.

Weekly rest periods taken inside the vehicle do not constitute rest: The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, whose opinion is very frequently followed by the Court when it issues its judgement, has ruled in a Belgian case with major implications for the road transport sector (CJEU, opinion, case C-102/16, Vaditrans BVBA). The case concerns a transport company which contested a fine imposed because one of its drivers had spent his weekly rest period on board his truck. The question was to establish whether this practice is permitted under European social legislation relating to road transport. Several member states which have incorporated a ban on making drivers take their weekly rest period on board their vehicle in their legislation believe that the rest period must be spent outside the truck, while others, such as Estonia and Spain, maintain that it is quite acceptable for a driver to spend his rest period in his vehicle, especially in view of improvements in cab comfort. The Advocate General has given his interpretation of the relevant provisions of European law, that is article 8, paragraphs 6 and 8 of Regulation No. 561/2006. He concludes that “the driver may not take regular weekly rest periods referred to in Article 8(6) inside the vehicle”. The European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), which had sent a letter to the European Commission denouncing the practice of making drivers spend their rest periods in their vehicles, welcomed the Advocate General’s opinion in a press release.

• Employability in the sport and active leisure sector: The European social partners in the sport and leisure sector have drawn up a joint opinion on “strengthening employability in the sport and active leisure sector”.

• Wording of the interprofessional agreement: The social partners on 2 February signed the interprofessional agreement 2017-2018 highlighted in our last issue. The wording of the agreement is now available.
  > Also see press releases of the FGTB and CSC trade union federations and the employers’ organisation FEB.

• Agreement on commercial policies in the banking sector: The social partners in the banking sector on 8 February signed a national agreement on sales policies and work organisation which in particular reflects the issues raised by the “sales vs. advice” campaign launched by the UNI Global Union trade union federation to prevent abuses relating to the sale of financial products and protect employees from unrealistic targets (see Frankfurt declaration, 16 April 2010 and UNI Finance press release).

• Greater flexibility of working hours: The law of 23 December 2016 on the organisation of working hours entered force on 1 January 2017. One of the key measures allows employers to extend the legal reference period from one month previously to four months. In return, they must grant employees additional leave days, depending on the duration of the reference period. However, as before, the social partners can negotiate a collective bargaining agreement to extend the reference period to up to 12 months, while at the same time negotiating compensation measures that meet the needs of both the company and employees. The employers consider the reforms to be too rigid and costly for businesses (see Practical guide issued by the Fedil employers’ organisation).
  > For an overview of the law, see the analysis published by the law firm Arendt & Medernach.

Eiffage: The French construction and concessions group, Eiffage (70,000 employees), on 30 December 2016 signed a new European works council agreement. The EWC has 22 members (with a ceiling set at 30) and meets twice a year. The select committee has five members (three from outside France), who meet quarterly. A representative of the EFBWW European trade union federation can attend meetings. Between two plenary meetings, the agreement encourages the management to communicate interim information to the select committee “in order to help involve the committee more closely in current transnational issues and group developments”. The EWC can also request information from company management about the group’s international construction sites. Should a case of exceptional circumstances arise, the select committee is “previously informed and convened for a meeting at the initiative” of company management. For such a case to arise, a decision must affect either at least two countries and involve a significant percentage of the staff at each entity under consideration when the problem is one of employment; or else a single country, provided that the importance of this event necessarily entails a national or transnational impact with regard to the staff. Members of the select committee may visit the sites concerned. The EWC has an operating budget of 60,000 euros.

• Geberit: The EWC of the Swiss Geberit group (“Europe Forum”) will convene on 2-3 March in Munich for an information and consultation meeting concerning a restructuring plan that threatens two production sites and 250 jobs in France. Production is due to be transferred mainly to Portugal, but also to Poland and Italy. The meeting, secured by the lawyer of the joint trade union body representing the two French sites, is overdue since the plan was originally presented to representatives of the French workforce in May 2016. The French consultation process has not been concluded yet, and the current legal dispute between the trade union representatives and the management could result in the latter having to start the process all over again.


• Syndex: Having trained more than 300 trade union officials and EWC members since 2015 as part of a European project entitled “Working together for European recovery: workers’ involvement in companies’ future as a cornerstone”, the consultancy Syndex has placed online a “toolkit” (www.syndex.eu), available in several languages, as an aid to training for EWC members. The project was managed by Syndex in partnership with four European trade union federations, the ETF, EPSU, IndustriAll Europe and UNI Europa.

• UniCredit: An agreement signed between the management of the Italian bank UniCredit and the five trade union organisations affiliated to UNI Finance on the social impact of the plan to transform the bank will result in 3,900 voluntary redundancies and a scheme allowing employees to take early retirement up to 54 months before they would normally retire (see press release of UNI Finance, in English, of the joint trade union body, in Italian).

Slowdown in offshoring: According to a report from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), the number of cases recorded in the EU of restructuring linked to the relocation of activities has been in decline since the economic and financial crisis (see summary). The study underscores that such relocations were never “a large source of job loss, despite dire predictions that a very large number of jobs in Europe and elsewhere in the developed world were potentially offshorable”. Thus, according to the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), a tool developed by Eurofound, “between 2003 and 2007, offshoring accounted for 7% of all announced job loss in the ERM. This declined to 4% in the depths of the recession (2008–2010) and continued to decline to under 3% in 2015–2016.” The ERM also found that, in manufacturing, offshoring has declined in the pre-2004 member states – where the share of associated job losses fell from 14% to 7% between 2003–2007 and 2015–2016 – while it has increased by a factor of four in the EU13 (from 4% to 15% over the same periods). The destinations of production offshoring are countries where labour costs are lower.