European Works Councils, an Embryo for Transnational Solidarity

As companies operate increasingly on an international scale, meaningful employee participation needs a form of transnationalism. In Europe, this took shape in the form of European Works Councils (EWCs) with a EU Directive on the matter published in 1994. It was hoped that through transnational information and consultation of employees, a form of transnational solidarity would be created. Case study research identified multiple obstacles and limits to the development of this transnational solidarity.

In this paper, we study the development of transnational solidarity in EWCs based on large scale survey results. A survey of over 2.000 EWC representatives of over 200 different EWCs gives insight in how EWC representatives experience transnational solidarity, how this changes according to the EWC, but also how the experience varies inside various EWCs, depending on the position and country of origin of the representative.

This multi-level research is the first of its kind that looks in to these themes using a representative sample of EWCs and EWC representatives and provides crucial in the problems and prospects of going towards true transnational solidarity.