The EU Commission has proposed a new revision of the directive on European Works Councils, the bodies that represent workers at company level, after 15 years without revision, in order to address a number of shortcomings.

There are now around 1,000 European works councils (EWCs) representing more than 11.3 million workers, but this is still less than a third of the estimated 4,000 eligible companies, according to the EU executive.

And the directive’s shortcomings are not limited to the scope of these bodies.

“The commission itself noted, in its 2018 evaluation report, the overall weaknesses of the tools in place to enable EWCs to enforce their rights,” Oliver Roethig, regional secretary of UNI Europa, an organisation representing seven million service workers, told EUobserver.