Rheinmetall: new European framework agreement on health management

Negotiations supervised by IndustriAll.  Rheinmetall AG set up its European Works Council (EWC) in 2000.  Before the summer, it signed a “European Framework Agreement on Health Management,” its second European text since it signed a Code of Conduct in 2003 with its EWC.  “The initiative came from the EWC which suggested extending an agreement on the protection of labor, negotiated at the level of the auto industry.  In any case, all the European subsidiaries wanted to work on the theme of health” Stöber explains.  There are six subsidiaries (France, Spain, Norway, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Italy).  A former member of the IG-Metall and of the central WC of Rheinmetall AG, and therefore former member of the EWC and former vice-president of the group’s supervisory board, he is now Coordinator for Rheinmetall at IndustriAll and was therefore involved in the negotiations.  Yet, IndustriAll didn’t sign the agreement, “because some management representatives in the armament branch didn’t want to make this cooperation with IndustriAll official.  But there is an amendment detailing our supporting/advisory role” Stöber said.