Dedalus and Arianna

I have been a member of the European Council since its beginning and until 2014. Throughout all those years, we have obtained significant changes inside the company thanks to our work.

I could say that during the first two or three years our task in the annual meetings of the EWC was that of listening to the different reports that the company was presenting. Some time had to go by where all the members attending the meeting had to acquire more knowledge and get used to the situation in order to start taking initiatives.

We members of the main countries by number of workers have always been represented in the select committee. It was from this organ that we started to pressure the management for more information and participation in decision-making processes, especially when those decisions influenced one or several community centers.

All the members of the select committee were convinced that if we acted jointly, our actions would be more powerful and have more repercussion.

We obtained that the ECTP be granted a budget in order to carry out its competencies.

Members of the ECTP could visit the centers with difficulties and support workers there trying to minimize the measures that the company was trying to impose.

A “communication committee” was created (two annual meetings) in order to produce all the propaganda about the ECTP.

In the field of communication, we edited a magazine that we sent to all the countries represented in order to envision and inform about our work. This magazine was published in several languages. We also obtained an intranet for the EWC, which is translated into several languages.

From the EWC we worked so that the investments that the company management was suggesting would be equally destined to all the different plants.

The EWC became an element of pressure for the Multinational.

At the peak of the crisis, when there were mass dismissals of workers, we negotiated that severance pays always needed to be higher than the ones legally established by each country involved. From within the EWC we also monitored the situation to make sure that the agreements be respected in all facilities and in all countries.

From the moment we obtained a direct channel of communication with the general management of the multinational, there were no more of those excuses the local managers would usually give us in order not to implement improvements in workers’ rights.