Besides the ETUI, many other organisations are conducting research and producing interesting publications and useful training materials for European Works Councils. The European Commission continues to support such projects with grants and funding. Where possible, we would like to make these resources more visible and accessible to a wider audience. On this page you will find links to websites, publications and other materials that will give you background information and practical assistance with European-level worker representation.
Filcams-CGIL, the Italian Commerce, Tourism and Services Workers' Federation affiliated to CGIL, is the promoter of the project OpenCorporation. The aim is to make multinationals more transparent and accessible as well as at improving the workers' and worker representatives' capability to exercise a regular and aware monitoring on corporate activities and decisions. Applying pressure on their reputational aspect, to make corporations compete and excel in terms of quality and sustainability. On the basis of objectively verifiable indicators, the research team carries out a survey on some multinational companies in order to get quali-quantitative information on different aspects. The result is a ranking of transnational companies, which is based on eight key factors: social dialogue, job conditions, social responsibility, finance, diversity, accessibility, environment and transparency.
Check out how your company scores in the ‘Rating & Ranking’ section of the website and put Corporate Social Responsibility high on the agenda of your information, consultation and participation bodies!
In autumn 2015, the EU Project “EWC: Fit for Change” started under the lead of the GPA-djp. The project’s target included the development a transnational network of experts and training modules for the further development of skills of European Works Councils in restructurings in corporate groups. A total of three transnational seminars were organised during the project, during which European Works Council members from several European countries and different sectors worked intensively on the organisation of work of their EWC bodies and on strategies for upcoming challenges. In this process, the project team developed manuals and training units that will be used for further training of EWCs. All this, and more, can be found on the dedicated webpages from the GPA-djp site.
The "To.Be.E.EWC" project, Towards a Better Employee involvement in undertakings, builds upon the results of the Mu.M.M.I.A project, also mentioned on this webpage. Project leader was the Italian autonomous bank federation FABI, in cooperation with UNI Europa, FILCAMS-CGIL and partner unions from the Netherlands, Romania, Malta and Sweden. The objective was to clarify the roles and tasks of the main actors in establishing and improving European Works Councils. It intended to turn basic guidelines into an operating process, representable and browsable by a flowchart, where the micro manuals are ranked by figures/actors involved and corresponding steps of the EWC establishment and life. The manuals are available in seven languages: Dutch, English, French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish. The website provides the actors with tools helping them to cope with the main tasks.
Trans-quali-EWC, Net2Quali-EWC and Quali2move are three projects that were managed by the German metalworkers federation IG Metall. On this website you will find not only a detailed description of the project aims and workshops, but also free for download presentations, handbooks and other publications on topics such as EWC training, innovation and green technology.
The Hungarian union LIGA managed a project on promoting the establishment of EWCs in new member states, in particular in Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Practical guides on how an EWC works can be downloaded. Other information is available mainly in Hungarian, Lithuanian and Polish language only.
CGIL from Italy was the leading partner in a project called I.C.A.R.U.S. or, in full: Information and Consultation Approaches of Research coordinating good Union Standards. During the project several newsletters and a video-documentary were produced, which can be found on this website.
Multisectoral Multinationals Managing Information and Consultation Agreements, in short Mu.M.M.I.A., was a project lead by the Italian union CGIL. One of the objectives was to exchange best practices and to identify factors that may hinder the establishment of European Works Councils in companies that are active in many different countries and at least two different sectors. All documents can be found on this website and plenty of video-material is available on YouTube (just enter “MuMMIA Project” in the search box).