Anticipate & Shape: improving effective workers’ involvement in the massive transformation of industrial MNCs

With financial support of the EU

Thousands of European industry jobs are expected to change dramatically in the coming years due to the transformation towards a digital, environmentally sustainable and ageing society; as a result of the ever-increasing pressure of an ill-regulated globalisation; and of the political uncertainties coming from the resurgence of nationalistic and regionalist outlooks. Restructuring is no longer an exceptional circumstance. Change is there and is happening at a never seen before pace and scale.

A broad consensus exists to acknowledge the instrumental role anticipation and socially responsible management of restructuring play on safeguarding quality jobs and companies’ competitiveness. Proactive approaches which rely on genuine employment and skill needs forecast, on early and quality workers’ involvement and on long-term strategic planning simply deliver better outcomes. And yet, multinational companies continue to remain reactive, workers’ involvement continue to be largely ineffective in times of restructuring and alternative to job cuts, redundancies or plant closures not systematically looked after.

The project intends to conduct a critical review of both multinational companies [MNCs] management’s, trade union and worker representatives’ as well as public institutions’ policies and practices on dealing with transnational restructuring, to understand what work and what does not. Case studies will be drawn from a series of company-based meetings convened on MNC cases undergoing or about to undergo transnational change. The good and bad practices thus identified will fuel concrete recommendations to worker representatives in MNCs. Both the concrete and political recommendations derived from the project will then be further discussed and developed at a final conference and fuel political debates at EU level on the need for stronger instruments.

Activities:

February 2022: online interactive final conference, read also here