REDITER project
Five national seminars
Overall approach
20th December 2010
20th December 2010
1. General framework
Seminars held from mid-May 2010 (Spain) to the end of November (UK)
Almost all the seminars were two or 1,5 days long but the UK one (lunch
to lunch meeting to attract more participants)
Informations about seminars were published on each partner website in
due time
Publication of short reviews about participants, contents and results of
each national seminar is still to be done (Frédéric Turlan, from january
2011 to april 2011)
.
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2. Participants
Overall, about 160 people (EWC delegates, unionists and managers) attended the
seminars. In all the seminars, there was a mix between national and foreign
participants (more or less, depending on the seminar)
•
In terms of sectors, all seminars but the German one, had a multisectoral approach.
The German seminar was focused on the insurance sector. In the other seminars,
most of the participants came from sectors covered by UNI EUROPA (Banks,
insurance, cleaning, private security, commerce, telecommunication, media, etc.)
but some of them (depending on the national seminar considered) also came from
the industry (especially metalworking, energy, chemicals, automotive, etc.)
•
Most of the employee delegates were members of EWCs but some national trade
union officials also attended the seminars due to the support provided by some
national unions to the project (CARTEL ALFA, UNITE, UGT, VER.DI, CFDT). All
EWC members were unionised
•
HR managers or employer representatives more or less participated in all the
seminars. Most of them made presentations and were involved in discussions with
employee delegates
•
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3. Contents / Methods
All seminars dealt with issues related to the recast directive and its national transposition
measures from a legal perspective. Presentations and discussions about it involved both
project partners (Romania, Germany, France) and external experts from the EC (Evelyne
Pichot in Spain and Germany), the European Trade union movement (ETUI in the UK) or
labour lawyers (France)

All national unions supporting the project contributed to the seminars design. In one case,
in Germany, UNI EUROPA Finance and VER.DI were the co organisers of the seminar.

Roughly speaking, restructuring issues as well as quality of information provided to
EWCs, in link with globalization of companies, were major discussion topics in all the
seminars. However, links between EWC members and employees as well as
confidentiality were also significant issues for participants.

Almost all the seminars planned interactive activities (working groups, practical
exercises), giving room for in depth exchanges of experiences between attendants.

In some countries (especially France and Romania) HR managers were also involved in
such activities

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4.
Future prospects ?
 General observations :
Beyond the necessary training of EWC delegates on legal or technical aspects ,it
seems clear that major problems EWC delegates face are related to the precise
definition of their role : What is the specific mandate of EWC representatives?
What is their duty and responsibility towards the trade union (in the case
the union appoints them) and the workers (in their establishment, the
undertaking they belong to, their country…) ? What is their work agenda,
action programme ? What are their priorities? Are they planned, agreed with
their trade unions, with the workers they represent?
Such questions may be a basis for possible future projects.
 Open questions
- Should we work on future EU projects related to EWC training ? Which kind of
projects ?
- Would UNI EUROPA support some future projects ? Which kinds of projects ?
20th December 2010