The potential of employee involvement in the SE to foster the Europeanization of labour relations

Abstract

This article looks at recent developments with regard to employee involvement in the European Company (SE) and in this light analyses the SE’s impact on European industrial relations. The article argues that the SE has indeed brought some innovation and new impetus at both national and European level. Thus, the SE might be better than its poor ‘reputation’ might suggest. This is all the more true with regard to the limited (new) rights granted by the SE legislation and the background of its introduction: the SE was never meant primarily as a social policy instrument, but rather to foster the cross-border mobility of companies in the EU internal market.

Transnational employee voice and knowledge exchange in the multinational corporation: The European Company (SE) experience

“…All of the SEs are headquartered in Germany except for one headquartered in Austria. At mid-2014, there were 2150 SEs in 25 of the 30 European Economic Area states, but most were irregular registrations (Stollt and Kluge, 2011). We selected cases using three criteria.…”

Can access to company boards improve transnational employee representation? Insights from employee representation in European Companies

“…Of these, around onefifth (642 SEs) have so far been identified as so-called 'normal SEs': that is, they conduct business operations and employ more than five employees. The other group contains so-called 'shelf SEs', which were set up without any operations or employees, but also SEs with very few employees and SEs where precise information is lacking (see for more details Stollt and Kelemen, 2013). Currently, SEs are registered in 28 of the 30 EEA countries, but with a highly uneven distribution (see also Keller and Rosenbohm, 2020): more than 80 per cent of all existing SEs are registered in Czechia and Germany.…”

The European Company: Original expectations and deficiencies of implementation

“…One decisive problem is that the connotation of 'structural changes' at a later point of time (such as considerable changes in the number of employees, merger with or acquisition of another company, transnational corporate restructuring) is not clearly specified in the Directive or in most transposition laws (Stollt and Kluge, 2011). The Commission itself argues that the 'before and after' principle should apply 'not only to the initial establishment of an SE but also to structural changes in an existing SE and to the companies affected by structural change processes' (SE Directive, Recital 18).…”