MEPs: Firms have duty to retrain sacked staff

Companies sacking staff as part of “corporate restructuring” would be responsible for retraining them to find other jobs under proposals approved by MEPs yesterday.

A 503-107 vote in Strasbourg urged the European Commission to act swiftly on more than a dozen recommendations in a report on “anticipating and managing” restructuring in private and public companies.

A European Parliament report, drawn up by Spanish Socialist MEP Alejandro Cercas, calls for rules requiring a single company with more than 100 staff in one member state, or a company and its “dependent” companies with more than 500 in more than one member state to take responsibility for retraining staff facing redundancy, and to create “redeployment and/or mobility cells”.

The companies would have to provide “individualised professional guidance”, with paid time off to search for work, as well as offering workers threatened with redundancy information “about the labour market, their rights and the conditions negotiated during the restructuring process”.

They would be required to provide “timely” information to “all relevant stakeholders” — including “local economic players” and their own workers — about their plans and alternatives considered.

Tory MEP Anthea McIntyre said “dependent” companies could include any sub-contractor or supplier, creating a “very high degree” of legal uncertainty for almost any employer in Europe: “It is a disappointment that a majority of MEPs have chosen to back proposals which are unrealistic, impractical and self-defeating. These measures would not save a single job but could instead push struggling companies into collapse.

“Fortunately these are not legislative proposals. They are in a so-called own-initiative report so the vote does not make them law. The European Commission is, however, obliged to respond to the suggestions and MEPs voted to urge the commission to come forward as soon as possible with a legal act.”