The European Works Council before the courts: putting law to work and the producing EU legal norms during the Renault Vilvorde case

Claude Didry (1)

1 IDHE - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Economie

The competition control exercised by the European Commission is defined by regulations that are immediately imposed on individuals. Consequently, it tends to bypass the bodies set up to represent employees. Prior to the 1994 directive concerning European Works Councils, only specific directives (collective redundancies and company transfers) that were transposed into national laws defined the prerogatives of these bodies regarding information and consultation. The European Works Council comes into play when multinational groups decide to undertake industrial restructuring. It therefore constitutes a new instrument allowing employee representatives to bring proceedings against any company management that attempts to keep the new representative body out of consultation procedures. The mobilizing of the European Works Council of Renault in the face of the plan to close the Renault plant in Vilvorde shows how the initiation of legal proceedings relayed and supported the social struggle that lasted several months in 1997. It also gave new impetus to production of European legal norms on the issues of informing and consulting workers and European limited liability company status. In the end, the production of legal norms should be viewed as a dynamic involving mobilization before the courts and the creation of laws.

Mots clés: EU Law; European Works Council; Perrier; Renault; Union

Domaines: Sociologie

Claude Didry. The European Works Council before the courts: putting law to work and the producing EU legal norms during the Renault Vilvorde case. 2000. ⟨halshs-00601572⟩