Contesting the Development of European Works Councils in the Chemicals Sector

Abstract

The Directive on European Works Councils (EWCs) introduced areas in which management and employee representatives could contest the development of the institution. This article reviews the outcome of this contestation within the chemicals sector, examining the agenda, the ‘Europeanization’ of representatives, company transparency and integration of EWCs into wider industrial relations networks. It shows that neither the expectations of critics of the Directive nor of those who emphasized its potential have been realized

European Works Councils after two decades

“…A prominent finding of case study research is that EWCs are at different stages of development, with some remaining rudimentary or symbolic and others becoming collective actors with sophisticated transnational procedures (Lecher et al, 1999). The use of quantitative methods is infrequent, and a quarter of the articles using such methods have the same author (Waddington 2003(Waddington , 2006a(Waddington , 2006b. The contribution to this Special Issue by De Spiegelaere and Waddington follows this approach.…”

“…First, EWCs are an institution in process and this process in contested by the parties involved (Waddington, 2006a;Waddington and Kerckhofs, 2003). The pattern of development of this institution is not fixed and the range of options available is broad (Lecher et al, 1999(Lecher et al, , 2001Weiler, 2004).…”

TNC Motives for Signing International Framework Agreements: A Continuous Bargaining Model of Stakeholder Pressure

“…Hence, the business ethics literature has likely ignored IFAs, since these are closely linked to union strategies and perspectives. The industrial relations literature, on the other hand, has framed IFAs as part of the corporate social responsibility 6 (CSR) trend rather than as part of traditional studies of union strategies (e.g., Miller, 2004;Riisgaard, 2005;Shanahan and Khagram, 2006;Waddington, 2006). In turn, the CSR trend has received only limited attention in the industrial relations literature (Egels-Zandén and Hyllman, 2007), with the result that industrial relations scholars pay only limited attention to IFAs.…”

“…In recent years, many researchers have noted the existence of IFAs, their potential impact on workers' rights, and the high priority that signing these agreements has for global union federations (e.g., Gallin, 2000;Muller-Camen et al, 2001;Wills, 2001;Connor, 2004;Spooner, 2004;Chang and Wong, 2005;Royle, 2005;Andersen, 2006;Turnbull, 2006;Waddington, 2006;Doellgast and Greer, 2007). Connor (2004, p. 64), for example, notes that global union federations (GUFs) have "sought to persuade a number of companies to sign international framework agreements", but that "only a relatively small number of companies have been willing to participate in such programmes".…”

The Establishment of the European Company: The First Cases from an Industrial Relations Perspective

“…European Industry Federations (EIFs) play some role in these processes: as in the case of EWCs (Waddington, 2006) they prepare guidelines for the negotiations before the first negotiations take place. The European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF) was especially active in the early stages (EMF, 2003), others were inspired by its work (UNI-Europa, 2004).…”