Information and Consultation The Building Blocks of High Performance

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Information and Consultation The Building
Blocks of High Performance
A Congress Perspective Fergus Whelan Congress
Industrial Officer
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Information and ConsultationOverview of
Presentation

• Information and Consultation- An Employment
  Right.
• What Does the Research Show?
• How do we respond to the Challenge of bringing
  Information and Consultation structures to every
  workplace in Ireland.
• Transposing Directive 2002 /14/ EC - A Real
  Opportunity to make a crucial difference.

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Legal Provisions

• European Social Charter, Community Charter of
  Fundamental Social Right of Workers and The
  Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
  Union all place strong emphasis on the right of
  workers to be consulted.
• European Works Council Directive (1996)
• European Company Statue 2001/86/EC - October 2004
  
• Directive 2002 /14/ EC on the Establishment of a
  General Framework For Informing And Consulting
  Employees In The European Community
• To be implementation by March 2005

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Employee Consultation - Some Interesting Research
Findings

• Research by Black and Lynch (1997) in 627
  establishments in USA.
• Measured impact on productivity against various
  inputs including sets of work practices.
• Findings - unionisation combined with greater
  employee involvement delivers higher productivity
  than either of the following scenarios,
• ? unionisation with low involvement
• ? non-unionisation with high involvement
• ? non-unionisation with low involvement

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Responding to the Challenge

• Recognition that it is a good thing, good for
  workers, good for employers and good for
  business.
• Education and Promotion of benefits of
  Information and Consultation.
• Key Role for NCPP and Forum of the Workplace of
  the Future Project.
• Challenge to the traditional mindsets of
  Employers and Unions.
• Only a real and positive engagement will deliver
  the goods.

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Transposing The DirectiveThe Key Issues for
Congress

• A National Framework Agreement?
• Sectoral Agreements?
• Whatever mechanism we choose some key principles
  that must be observed.
• Requirement for an explicit assertion of the
  rights of workers to be represented for the
  purpose of collective consultation with their
  employer.
• Key Role for employee representatives.
• Employee representatives must be independent from
  employers and employees must be the only people
  who have a say in the their selection

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Topics for discussion

• Employee involvement in competitiveness
• Training and personal development
• Equality of opportunity
• Representational arrangements
• Forms of financial involvement
• Work patterns
• New forms of work
• Flexibility and innnovation