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Obligation to set up a European Works Council : On 11 June, the Court of Appeal in Florence (Italy) ordered the Italian papermaking group Sofidel (6,327 employees in 13 countries), which manufactures disposable paper products (wipes, toilet paper, paper tissues), to set up a European Works Council. With the support of the UNI Europa trade-union federation, the Italian trade unions embarked on the process of creating a European Works Council in 2015. Five years later, when the unions threatened it with legal action, management decided to convene a special negotiating body (SNB) shortly before a hearing at the Lucca court, via videoconferencing but with no interpreting provided (in English only). The Lucca court found in the employer’s favour, ruling that there was nothing in the directive that prevented the SNB being convened via videoconferencing, but the Florence Court of Appeal then reversed the lower court’s ruling. In its judgment (in Italian), the Appeal Court 1/ Holds that the behaviour of Sofidel, which made the convening of the SNB conditional on only the English language being used at the meeting, i.e. with no interpreting services available, was anti-union in nature. 2/ Declares that the European Works Council is automatically constituted, given that no agreement had been reached during the three-year period following the application submitted by the trade unions (Article 1 § 1 of legislative decree no. 113/12). 3/ Orders Sofidel to pay the associated interpreting costs when convening meetings of the European Works Council, as provided for by Article 16 § 12 of the decree. 4/ Orders Sofidel to pay one half of the legal costs (slightly over 12,000 euros). 5/ Orders Sofidel to display a copy of this ruling for a period of 30 days, at a location accessible to everyone on the company’s Italian and foreign production sites, together with a translation into the national language concerned.
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