Multinationals review EWC agreements as trade unions prepare for stronger rights

European trade unions are preparing to make greater use of strengthened rights under the revised European Works Councils Directive. IndustriAll Europe reports that trade union federations have developed new guidance and a practical checklist to help employee representatives identify weaknesses in their existing agreements and prepare for future negotiations. The guidance was presented at a conference in Brussels last month attended by more than 100 trade union representatives and EWC experts. It raises an important question for multinational employers: are they equally prepared for the new rules? We’ll speak to employment lawyer Ben Brown about what businesses should be doing now.
The revised European Works Councils Directive was formally adopted last year and is now EU law. Member states have until January 2028 to implement the changes, with most of the new requirements applying from January 2029. However, provisions allowing negotiations to be requested to update certain existing agreements will apply a year earlier.
The reforms strengthen the rights of European Works Councils to be informed and consulted on decisions with implications for employees in more than one EU member state. They reinforce the requirement for consultation to take place before relevant decisions are made, strengthen enforcement and improve access to legal advice and other resources.    
The significance of the trade unions’ initiative is that employee representatives are being encouraged to prepare well before the new requirements take effect. Their guidance recommends reviewing existing agreements, identifying gaps and establishing priorities, rather than rushing into negotiations with management.
For employers, that raises a similar challenge. If employee representatives are examining their agreements against the new requirements, shouldn’t businesses be doing the same? And with the reforms bringing European Works Councils more directly into decisions affecting employees across national borders, how should employers prepare?
So let’s hear more on this. Earlier I caught up with Ben Brown, who joined me by video link from Leeds. So what can employers be doing now to prepare for the changes?
Ben Brown: “So I think the first thing I would always recommend is a gap analysis of the current EWC agreement. Is it likely that that's going to need to be completely renegotiated or is it likely that you can agree some variation with the existing EWC? Depending on what that gap analysis shows, I think, is going to give an indication of the risk level associated with it. A higher risk level, of course, is going to be a complete renegotiation whilst a lower risk level is going to be a potential variation in order to just simply bring it up to spec with this new directive. Of course there's going to be costs associated with that, but I think that's certainly the first step. I think the second step is risk assessing where specifically, in decision making frameworks, engagement with and consultation with the EWC is going to fall in. I think a lot of our clients currently will operate on the assumption that it's more of an information exercise where decisions probably have already been taken where EWCs are made aware of. I think going forwards, business is going to have to assess where consultation with EWCs comes into the equation before decisions are taken because that's the new requirement essentially – you have to give EWCs the ability to opine on decisions before they're taken and you have to consider their opinion and provide a reasonable written response to that. So I think it's about risk assessing how, for example, in a life sciences business when you are looking at R&D spend or you're looking at, for example, the use of AI in different operations that might have consequences for other operations in terms of reducing workforce resulting in restructures in one European member state that may ultimately have a wider scope when you apply it elsewhere. Actually, before that decision is taken, you're going to need to have consulted the EWC because the consequence of that potential decision in one member state has an impact on other member states. So I think even just understanding that now from a risk analysis perspective is going to be really important because those checkpoints in terms of decision making are really going to need to be thought about and, of course, the benefit of thinking about this early is that you've got the ability to think about training, upskilling, making sure that you have considered where decisions are made, and you've upskilled management to understand what the new requirements are going to be, and you have upskilled also the EWC as well because I think that the current members probably are going to need to be brought up to speed in terms of what these changes are, how that's going to impact the operation and the management of the European Works Councils.”
So the message for employers is to start preparing now by reviewing your existing EWC agreements, identifying where consultation needs to fit into decision-making and ensuring your managers understand the new requirements ahead of the changes. Ben is currently helping a number of his clients with that exercise. If you are one of the many businesses likely to be affected by this then please do contact Ben – his details are there on the screen for you.