Promoting voluntary agreements through Work council

Betriebsrat (Work counsil) is a unit where employers and employees share the different issues related to the finance and operations of the business or the organization. It gives the work of participation to the employees for information, consultation and co-determination rights of the Betriebsrat. Betriebsrats are present in the different European countries that are called as European Betriebsrats. The EU directive on establishing an European Betriebsrat in community-scale companies of undertakings for informing and consulting the employees was implemented and was agreed on September 1999 and it was implemented in UK in January 2000 through the Transnational Information and Consultation of Employee Regulations 1999 (TICER).

EWCs are highly important for the European industries as it follows the single Europeanization. To have the European Betriebsrat Directive, the requirement is to have 1000 employees within the member states and to have at least 150 employees in each of at least two member states. There is no obligation for companies to establish a EWC or transnational information and consultation procedure unless either company management takes the initiative to do so, or employees (or their representatives) trigger the request procedure laid down in the directive.

The objective of the directive is to promote voluntary agreements on the constitution and operations of EWCs.