UNICE rejects negotiations on information and consultation

In March 1998, a meeting of UNICE's council of presidents failed to produce a mandate for negotiations on national employee information and consultation within the framework of the Maastricht social policy Agreement. The European employers' organisation argued that dealing with this issue at European level would breach the principle of subsidiarity. ETUC is now calling on the European Commission to start drafting legislation on this issue.

After a meeting of the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe (UNICE) council of presidents on 11 March 1998, it was announced by François Perigot, the organisation's president, that UNICE will not at the present time embark on negotiations with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) on information and consultation of employees at national level. The announcement followed the second round of consultations of the European-level social partners by the European Commission, under the Maastricht Treaty's social policy Agreement, on the content of possible EU legislation on this issue (EU9711160N). It is at this second stage of the consultation procedure that the social partners may opt to seek to negotiate an agreement on the issue at question, rather than awaiting a Commission proposal for legislation.

UNICE has rejected calls to negotiate on the basis that legislation concerning information and consultation for employees should be left for negotiation at the national level, and that where European-level intervention is justified, there is already provision in the form of the European Works Council () Directive (94/45/EC). Mr Perigot said that "our member federations are virtually unanimous in their conviction that the European Union should not intervene in such a matter, which has no transnational implications" (UNICE press release, 16 March 1998).

Moreover, it is argued by UNICE that a substantial body of statutory and negotiated instruments already exists in 13 out of the 15 Member States, and as a result there is no valid justification for a new intervention.

The ETUC regards the decision by UNICE as "bad and ill-founded". ETUC has claimed that the decision indicates what it sees as the "employers' total disregard for workers' fundamental rights". The ETUC also argues that the decision is ill-founded in invoking the subsidiarity principle, as a European initiative should aim merely to guarantee the principle of information and consultation as a right. Implementing this right, it is argued, would still be a matter for Member States and national management and labour, as the ETUC is not looking for a "one size fits all" solution. The ETUC had hoped that a European framework agreement would enshrine the following elements:

• the right of all workers, as well as their workplace and trade union representatives, to be informed and consulted in a timely manner and well in advance before decision making, whatever the size of the undertaking or administration;

• the right of all workers, as well as their workplace and trade union representatives, to be informed and consulted at the level of the group, if the undertaking belongs to a group;

• the right of workers to set up a representative body;

• the right of workers and their representatives to be protected, to have time off for training and freely to choose experts; and

• the right of workers and their representatives to meet and to communicate.

According to the ETUC, the objective of a framework agreement would not have been to replace well-functioning systems for information and consultation at national level, but to set minimum standards for this basic right. National provisions that are more advantageous were to take precedence over the agreement.

Padraig Flynn, the Commissioner responsible for employment, social affairs and industrial relations, expressed disappointment over UNICE's decision. He argued that this rejection undermined the whole concept of partnership.

The UK newspaper, the Independent reported on 17 March that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair had expressed opposition towards any European-level agreement on national information and consultation to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who - it is claimed - then persuaded Germany's employers' organisations to drop their support for the policy. It is argued by the newspaper that this was sufficient to ensure a vote within UNICE against negotiations with the unions.

In response to UNICE's decision, the ETUC has called upon the Commission to start drafting legislation immediately.