New European Material

Lots been happening in employment law over the last week - sorry I haven't put updates out immediately.

This Email deals with two EU developments. I am sending, simultaneously, an Email dealing with two new consultation documents. At some stage (probably tomorrow), I will send an Email dealing with two new House of Lord's decisions on employment law.

1. Annual Equality Report

The Commission has today adopted the 7th annual report on equal opportunities. It looks at the adoption of the Directive on Harassment at Work, examined new caselaw on equal pay and considers how far gender issues have been given a role in each of other EU policies.

Whilst not funny, no doubt some commentators will rise an eyebrow at the line at page 24 of the report:

"In 2002, 12 women were stoned to death in Iran for 'moral' crimes. Men just get their hands amputated for similar offences."

It does rather put wearing a tie in the office into perspective.


2. Advocate General opinion on collective consultation obligations

Note: I have not read the AG's opinion. The report below was received from the Federation of European Employers (http://www.fedee.com)

The Advocate-General to the European Court of Justice has issued his opinion in the Ads Anker GmbH case (C-349/01). This concerns a company's refusal to supply corporate information when requested by employee representatives seeking to establish a European works council. Unlike the previous Kuhne & Nagel case (C-440/00), the point of dispute was not whether a head office should comply with a subsidiary's information request, as the parent company in this case was in Switzerland and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the European Union. The question was therefore whether a request through a subsidiary company could be resisted by other companies in a group over which the subsidiary did not exercise any direct legal authority.

The Advocate-General advised the court that it was clearly an obligation on all EU member states to require companies operating within their jurisdiction to furnish information requested for the purpose of determining whether a group met the size thresholds for the establishment of a European works council.