Collective Bargaining

At what level should the works council be introduced? What aspects need to be anticipated with regard to works council elections? When should a health and safety commission be put in place? Can the contents of the BDES (company economic and social database) be modified? Can the compulsory consultations by the works council and their timeframe be modified? When does a European works council need to be put in place? In which cases does the European works council need to be consulted? [separation] Changes in legislation mean that social dialogue is at the heart of modern labour law. Mindful of these changes, the firm provides its clients with assistance in their relations with staff representative bodies. Works councils /Local representatives: Impact study on set-up (health and safety commission, local representative, number of officers, delegation hours…), ad-hoc and compulsory annual consultations, contents of the BDES, relations with experts and consultation timeframes. Managing representative bodies within a group: elections and set-up in multi-business unit companies, allocation of duties between  central council / business unit council,  works council (drawing up agreements, nomination of the representative bodies), transnational bodies (negotiating and drawing up agreements for setting up a European works council).

How should a day-based remuneration agreement be worded to avoid any risk of subsequent litigation? In which cases should an invention clause be included? Should invention clauses include remuneration? What financial compensation should be envisaged in a restraint of trade clause? Does an employment contract have to include provisions on GDPR? [separation] ELSE assists companies with the issues encountered from the signing of the employment contract to its termination.   Employment contract matrices Technical clauses: intellectual property, invention, restraint of trade, reimbursement of training costs, variable remuneration, objectives, telecommuting, personal data (GDPR)… Contract termination: assistance with decision-making and drawing-up documents, negotiating mutual consent agreements, evaluating severance payments and assessing industrial tribunal litigation risk. Company pay policy: drawing up policies relating to variable pay, commissions, fringe benefits and remunerating inventions.

In which cases should a transition agreement be put in place? Is it preferable to negotiate an anticipatory substitution agreement? Which social status applies after a merger/ spin-off/ partial transfer of assets? What consequences does a retroactively-effective merger have on profit-sharing? Which procedure needs to be implemented when making more than 10 employees redundant for economic reasons? How is a collective contractual termination applied? How to determine the job positions impacted by a collective contractual termination? How can a reorganisation be carried out in the absence of any economic difficulty? How to negotiate a collective performance agreement? [separation] Whether it’s a merger-acquisition, demerger, partial transfer of assets or reorganisation due to economic difficulties (job preservation or voluntary redundancy scheme), ELSE puts its technical and strategic expertise at its clients’ disposal throughout the restructuring process. Social impact studies: costed estimation of the harmonizing of collective statutes, employee salaries, working hours, staff representative bodies, employee savings schemes, benefit schemes… Individual and collective redundancies for economic reasons: identifying the economic basis, procedural calendar, drawing up documents, consulting with works council, calculating severance payments and evaluating industrial tribunal litigation risks. Job preservation schemes (PSE)/ Voluntary redundancy schemes (PDV): economic report and measures included in the PSE, procedural calendar, agreement on methods, consulting with works council/European works council, redeployment procedure, termination notices, PSE follow-up and assisting with litigation.