European Board-Level Employee Representation

Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations-102

It is often assumed that employee representatives exert power at the company board, but it is rarely made explicit how power is exercised and to what effect. This book, the first to assess national differences between board-level employee representatives in their exercise of influence and power, examines coordination among board-level employee representatives, trade unions, representatives from other institutions of labour representation within the company, management and other board members.

Drawing on a large-scale survey distributed to board-level employee representatives, eleven expert contributors analyse for seven European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden) how such issues and topics as the following affect the participation of employee representatives at the board:

• capacity of board-level employee representatives to exercise power over long-term strategic corporate decision making;
• how changed circumstances impinge on the role of employee representatives;
• how coordination of workers’ interests has been established and maintained, if at all;
• how board-level employee representatives are selected;
• influence of board-level employee representatives on corporate restructuring;
• effect of corporate codes of governance;
• impact of the establishment of groups of companies; and
• protections against dismissal and discrimination of board-level employee representatives.

Each country chapter reviews the legislation that underpins board-level employee representation, the timeliness and quality of the information provided, and the capacity of the representatives to apply information made available, with the purpose of establishing whether the legislation tends to constrain or facilitate the exercise of influence and power.

This book takes a giant step towards answering the question of how board-level employee representatives can fulfil their roles in a manner consistent with the intentions of the policymakers who framed the legislation. Moreover, it approaches the possibility of developing pan-European legislation on board-level employee representation that would accommodate national variations. For these reasons, the book will be welcomed by European policymakers concerned with industrial relations or corporate governance, as well as by practitioners and academics in a wide swath of European legal and social studies.