Restructuring and Employment: The Contribution of the European Union

Restructuring and Employment: The Contribution of the European Union

TUC Comments

The TUC welcomes this paper, which is a part of the European Commission's drive for better preparation for the challenges of globalisation and the promotion of social management of change and restructuring. Restructuring includes improving skills and qualifications for those affected by globalisation, as well as focusing on numbers of jobs. The main players in the management of restructuring, including companies and trade unions, are invited to step up co-operation.

The TUC welcomes the monitoring of activity sectors, so that the EU is well placed to consider employment and qualifications forecasts for 2020. The revision of the Directive on European Works councils, so that workers rights to information and transnational consultation are properly observed in practice, to increase the number of EWCs established and to ensure that Directives on worker information and consultation work in with each other more effectively, is timely and important. Needless to say, we also support the EU looking outward, so the EU's active support of the inclusion of decent work as a global objective of the United Nations deserves special mention, as does work with the G8, the ILO and the WTO on this agenda.

The TUC supports the proposal for companies with over a thousand staff to share best practice on the management of restructuring operations, including relations with regions and subcontractors. In our view, this should be extended to include relations with their trade unions and reports of joint initiatives to protect the position of employees at times of upheaval.

The TUC welcomes the proposal to include climate change among the topics to be addressed by future 'restructuring forums'. Trade unions, in the UK and across Europe, have been actively engaged in the debate around the protection of manufacturing, exploiting the employment opportunities provided by green manufacturing and technology, and the wider protection of the environment. We look forward to taking an active role in this work.

We reiterate our support for the 'orientations of reference', to be used in restructuring situations and developed by the European social partners in 2002, which underline the need to:

• Explain the reasons for the change to the employees or their representatives in good time;
• Make provision for effectively informing and consulting the employees throughout the process of change;
• Maintain and develop the skills and qualifications of the employees in order to enhance their employability;
• Take into account the regional dimension (economic and social repercussions of the restructuring on the regions affected);
• Consider the specific situation of subcontractor SMEs.