EU: recommendations from European trade union federations to help EWC representatives manage the impact of Brexit

The trade union federations IndustriAll Europe, Uni Europa, EFFAT, EPSU, ETF and EFBWW have issued “joint […]  recommendations to EWC/SE coordinators and worker representatives in SNBs, EWCs and SEs” to manage the impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union. The federations invite representatives to make Brexit a recurring theme and a subject of information and consultation and urge them to fight to make sure UK representatives keep their seats on their respective bodies. Furthermore, the federations interpret the UK law transposing the European EWC directive as giving UK representatives the legal means to keep their mandate in the event that their EWC, based under UK law before Brexit, is transferred to another country.
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“The magnitude of the challenge requires careful attention,” the European trade union federations underline in their recommendations. More than 700 multinational companies which have established an EWC or adopted the SE statute have operations in the UK, and there are at least 2,400 representatives of UK workers in EWCs and SEs, while the “legal situation of the [almost] 140 EWCs and SEs based on the UK transposition laws of the EWC and SE directives will change”, according to the federations.

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