Amazon has an EWC - finally!
On 11 May – after almost 4 years of negotiations - Amazon signed a European Works Council agreement. The EWC is governed by Irish law, comprises 30 members, about 238 000 employees and also covers the United Kingdom.
Although management was slowing down the negotiation process for a long time, it changed opinion at the end of 2021 and resumed negotiations after they had been interrupted due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The agreement includes:
- 2 annual EWC meetings with simultaneous interpreting
- paid 24h / year for members of the European committee
- paid 72h /year for Select Committee members
- entitlement to 15 days of support / year from an expert
- 5 days of training per member over their four year term of office
Weaknesses:
- high threshold set for employee representation (1,000 in a country)
- high threshold set for organising an extraordinary meeting of the Select Committee: a proposal must concern 5% of the workforce (i.e. 12,000 employees in the EU) and at least 7% of the workforce in at least two countries over a period of no more than 90 days.
- the same percentages apply to the issue of transnationality