The Cookson European Consultation Forum (ECF) is probably the first European Works Council to react to the new EWC Directive and it has terminated the existing EWC agreement. The termination notice which was signed by each individual EWC member of the English conglomerate was passed on to company management by the German Chair of the employee representatives Karin Holz. The agreement is terminated with the intention that a new EWC agreement is negotiated by the summer of 2009. If these negotiations are not successful, the ECF will be dissolved. A Special Negotiating Body could negotiate a new EWC agreement in this case. Since the formation of the ECF, different views and opinion with the English company management hampered the effectiveness of the ECF’s work. The question of timely information and consultation was at the centre of the controversy along with the work facilities of the Steering Committee. The conflict resolution procedure which was part of the agreement was launched by employee representatives in 2007 but ran without a positive outcome as management and employee representatives could not agree on a common mediator. The EWC members assume that even the current minimum standards of the EWC Directive include more favourable framework standards than those provided for the EWC agreement concluded in 2005. 

Cookson EWC Agreement

Outgoing Chair Maggi Wendt was given a standing ovation by the 50 EWC members of Deutsche Post who came from 29 different countries. Newly elected Chair Elmar Kallfelz acknowledged the merits of his predecessor at the end of her five year term of office. Maggi had initiated the formation of the Special Negotiating Body back in 2000 and stood at the summit of the European Works Council Forum since its formation in 2003. As a convinced European, her attention was particularly directed at the involvement of all EU countries which was expressed through the distribution of the 12 seats on the Presidium among 12 different countries. In the internationalisation of the employee representation structures of Deutsche Post she also had to overcome reservations in her own ranks, especially as half of all employees of the group are still employed in Germany. During the constituent meeting of the second term of office, five "Business Committees“ were set up for the first time in order to enable more intense consultation in the various divisions of the group. Hellmut Gohde (TCI) was elected for a further four years as permanent expert of the employee representatives.

The long established Hamburg shipping company Hapag Lloyd is getting its own EWC following the sale of the company by TUI AG. On the official sales date (so-called “closing”) which is expected at the end of January 2009, the existing shipping committee of the TUI Europe Forum will take over the task of the Hapag Lloyd European Works Council. The committee has represented the interests of European shipping employees within the TUI Group up to now. The shipping committee is also acting as a Special Negotiating Body with the aim of negotiating an EWC agreement for Hapag Lloyd. Employee representatives and company management agreed on this process shortly before the end of the year. Hapag Lloyd was sold to a Hamburg investment group by the TUI AG in a sensational bidding war. Hapag Lloyd works councils had strongly supported this “Hamburg Solution” with a series of actions. There was fear of mass redundancies if the company had been sold to the bidder from Singapore.