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on 12 February, the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) in London delivered its judgment in a dispute between the Oracle European Works Council and the group’s management. On 27 March 2017, the management, in a conference call, had informed members of the European Works Council of a restructuring, which would involve a number of countries and 380 job losses. The Council believed that management had violated a number of the provisions of the British TICER law, which enacts directive 2009/38 on European Works Councils. The Council, which is one of the few set up in accordance with the subsidiary requirements of the directive, criticised management for: 1. not providing enough financial information to enable it to carry out a detailed assessment of the proposal; 2. providing information only on job losses and not on other parameters such as quality of service or customer satisfaction; 3. beginning to lay off staff even before the European Works Council had been informed; 4. holding a virtual meeting with the European Works Council, whereas the regulation relating to the operation of the Council stipulates that physical meetings should be held; 5. telling attendees that the presentation given during the meeting was strictly confidential. In short, this is a fairly common situation, whereby the European Works Council is presented with a fait accompli . The CAC took the view that the meeting held on 27 March was not sufficient to meet the employer’s obligations in terms of information and consultation. The CAC considered that it could only be an information-giving event, which should then have led to consultation. The confidentiality requirement imposed by the employer was considered unreasonable, and there was no evidence that any disclosure would have caused any harm to the business. The CAC ruled that management should have provided information to enable the European Works Council to assess the impact of the plan on all employees, and not, as the employer claimed, simply on those who would lose their jobs. However, management was under no obligation to provide some of the financial information requested by the European Works Council. As far as the CAC was concerned, the aim of these requests was solely to check or challenge management’s decision, and according to the CAC, this is not something within the competence of the European Works Council. Finally, as to whether management should wait until the Council issues its opinion before implementing its decision at national and local level, the CAC deemed that the legal provisions covering the coordination of procedures at European and national level “do not indicate that the management cannot apply its decision before the European Works Council issues its opinion”
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