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on 3 December, the Rotterdam District Court issued an emergency ruling in a case concerning the violation by the management of the American aluminium producer Alcoa of its European Works Council’s information and consultation rights (see. Question for...). On 17 October, the management informed the select committee of its plan to close two sites in Spain (700 employees) (see IndustriAll Europe press release). A letter to this effect was sent on the same day to the works councils and trade unions at the sites concerned to inform them that the information and consultation procedure on the collective redundancy had begun. This procedure must provide for an agreement within a month. If no agreement is reached within this period, the management can close the sites without a redundancy plan. “The select committee decided to appeal to the court to request the suspension of the information and consultation procedure concerning the collective redundancy”, explains Petra Molenaar, a consultant with SBI Formaat, who is advising the council, “and to wait until the European Works Council had carried out an assessment and issued its opinion”. In contrast to the management, the committee considers consultation vital, since it believes that the plan is indeed transnational in so far as the closure has an impact on the whole group, especially on the shared services centre in Hungary, and that it involves the transfer of activities to other sites in the EU.
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