Employee representation at establishment level in Europe

Across Europe, diverse forms of employee representation structures have developed, providing workers with differing opportunities to voice their interests and to be consulted by their employers directly, at their workplaces, on matters such as economic and human resources developments, working conditions and health and safety measures. This report focuses on the workplace dimension of institutionalised representation of employees. At this level, representation involves only workers of a single undertaking or establishment, and the counterpart on the employers’ side is one single employer rather than an employers’ organisation or group of employers at higher levels of the industrial relations system, such as the sectoral level. The report is based on two sources of information: The findings of the 2009 European Company Survey (ECS); and country fact sheets produced by the national correspondents of the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).