Managing the impact of Brexit on multinational companies

27 Jan 2021

Four years after the UK referendum, Brexit has taken place. Since 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State of the European Union, nor part of the European Economic Area (EEA). Now, a new Trade and Cooperation Agreement governs the relationship between the UK and the EU with a view to regulating their economic and social partnership.

Although a deal has been reached, Brexit may be disruptive in many sectors and lead to potential job losses. Hence, transnational solidarity, which has been fostered over the years in EWCs and SEs, must grow even stronger. It will be needed – more than ever – to fight attempts by multinational companies to jeopardise workers’ rights, or to use Brexit to play off workers and sites of different countries against each other.

Now is the time to act. The European Trade Union Federations have jointly adopted and later updated the following recommendations to European Works Councils (EWC) and works councils and corporate boards of companies under the Societas Europaea statute (SE) Coordinators, as well as to worker representatives in Special Negotiating Bodies (SNBs).

The recommendations can be downloaded, in 8 different languages, here.