ABSTRACT
The manner in which EWCs have tackled the problems encountered in con stituting themselves, against the background of the rich experience of the practice of workplace employee representation at national level, is adding momentum to a process which extends beyond the provisions of EWC Direc tive and EWC agreements.1 Although the law limits employee participation to information and consultation, the practice of EWCs ‘suggests that the processes for establishing new procedures and institutions set in train by these agreements will not necessarily stop at the boundaries imposed by these definitions and the law’ (Höland, 1997, p. 60). This applies, for example, to the Directive’s restrictive understanding of consultation, which it defines as ‘the exchange of views and establishment of dialogue between employees’ representatives and central management or any other more appropriate level of management’. It also applies to the capacity of EWCs to conclude agree ments: in many instance they have already acquired experience of bargaining with corporate management through ‘negotiating in their own cause’ to im prove existing voluntary agreements. None the less, the development of EWCs remains very varied (see Chapter 3).
