The CAC (Central Arbitration Committee), which oversees the regulation of UK labour law as it relates to industrial relations matters, issued two decisions in late November and early December connected with the US IT multinational HPE’s (Hewlett Packard Enterprises) global business transformation project. These decisions concern the subsidiary requirements from the European Works Council Directive (2009/38/EC), as detailed and transposed into UK law by the Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 1999 (TICER) and are of interest in so far as how they address national jurisprudence (although the UK is no longer an EU Member state and will imminently exit EU legislative scope) on the role and means of a European Works Council.
Information and consultation of the European Works Council must take place at a time when it can still influence the decision. In the first decision of 30 November (available here), the CAC is settling an initial dispute on the recurring issue surrounding the appropriate stage during a restructuring project at which the EWC should be informed and consulted. In this case, on 28 August 2019, the Hewlett Packard Group announced to its entire workforce that it was launching a global business transformation project. One of the plan’s most significant changes involved moving the group’s operating structure away from its existing three regional framework and into a single business structure comprising ten geographic markets.
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