Uneven Geographies of Capital and Labour: The Lessons of European Works Councils

This contribution explores the ways in which trade unions have sought to organise workers in transnational corporations (TNCs) before looking at the pitfalls and possibilities of European Works Councils in more detail. The EWC directive covers an estimated 1400 companies across Europe, employing at least 15 million workers, and there are now more than 500 EWCs in existence. These new institutions are designed to allow employee representatives from across Europe to meet together for the purposes of information exchange and consultation with the senior managers from the TNC concerned. EWCs thus provide new horizontal networks of employee representatives across Europe and create new opportunities for information exchange, the formulation of transnational trade union responses and strategy and even active solidarity across national divides. This contribution draws upon original empirical evidence that highlights the difficulties of making EWCs work in this way. It is argued that there are at least four areas in which trade union intervention would make a difference to the operation of EWCs: (1) building active networks within and beyond any EWC; (2) sharing corporate intelligence; (3) formulating strategy at the level of the EWC; and (4) fostering identification with colleagues in other parts of the corporate network.