Ein europäischer Rechtsrahmen für Arbeitnehmerbeteiligung in transnationalen Unternehmen

Given the power of transnational corporations and the social impact of increasing globalisation, new forms of social embedding of companies are called for. Workers’ voice in the form of employee participation in strategic business decisions is an important tool for monitoring business decisions and is a key component of the European social model. However, it is currently underdeveloped and inadequate to meet current challenges. An important approach to strengthening employee participation is based on ensuring their functions in an institutionally diverse environment. Binding forms of worker participation must play an active role in formulating workers’ interests and in monitoring corporate behaviour. European law has a number of positive approaches to the anchoring of participation rights of employees such as the European Social Charter or the recent European Pillar of Social Rights. However, the European-level development of proposals for company law and decisions by the ECJ tend to undermine social standards. European solutions to these issues are the formulation of exceptions to the norms of the EU single market as well as new policy advances towards a more worker-friendly European company law.