Recommendations by the European Industry Federations to members of European Works Councils (EWCs), Works Councils in companies with a Societas Europaea status (SE-WCs), and Special Negotiating Bodies (SNBs) that were initially developed in March during the first wave of Covid-19 (c.f. article No.11804) were updated and published during the week 26 October in order to take account of the longer-term profile of the crisis as ‘travel restrictions would continue to prevent face-to-face SNB, EWC and SE-WC meetings for a considerable time to come.’ With recourse to remote formats (total or hybrid) being unavoidable, and indeed preferable to no meetings at all, the trade union federations have formulated a set of principles to frame these meetings so that they allow the members of these transnational bodies to exercise their ‘rights to be informed, consulted and to take part in company decisions which may impact jobs and workers’ income.’
As has been the case since the start of the health crisis, the European trade union bodies recall that physical meetings must remain the norm in order to work efficiently and ‘as soon as the situation will allow it, physical meetings must become the normal way for an SNB, EWC or SE-WC to operate again,’ affirming a principle to combat the temptation of continuing such online meetings indefinitely.
However in a bid to manage the current set of circumstances, the trade union federations have outli
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