Benchmarking 2015Published every year, the report analyses the state of working Europe explaining with the aid of statistics and graphs the main trends in terms of Europe’s macro-economic situation, its labour market development, the situation of wages and collective bargaining, and worker participation.

The focus of this year’s Benchmarking report is on the lessons learned – or not learned – from eight years of economic crisis and austerity policy. The findings point to policy failures and to the need to redefine alternatives in order to get Europe back on a sustainable growth path. The deterioration of the labour market and social situation in the EU, along with the appointment of a new Commission last autumn, have led to some renewed policy initiatives that seek to restore growth as a means of addressing the situation. The most notable of these initiatives is the Annual Growth Survey with its three pillars: the Investment Plan, fiscal responsibility and structural reforms.

BM 2015 InfographicAn infographic presenting main findings of the report is available at the ETUI website

Chapter 4 of the Report deals with workers' participation. It discusses:

  • recent developments on EU level aiming at refitting information and consultation rights;

  • transposition of key provisions related to articulation in the recast EWC Directive 2009/38/EC as well as looks at contractual arrangements on articulation in EWC agreements;

  • discusses two dimensions of articulation: horizontal (between various actors) and vertical (between various levels of information and consultation);

  • within the dimension of horizontal articulation discusses the role of health and safety representatives at workplace and their (possible) interlinking with EWCs;

  • presents an overview of health and safety representation in European workplaces;

  • presents findings on the (creeping) europeanisation of board-level employee representation;

  • discusses the position of workers' rights in EU company law.

The full report can be downloaded and purchased (printed version) via the www.etui.org website

Download Chapter 4: Articulating workers’ participation (EN)

Publication date : 2015

Number of pages : 80