Korian inaugurates its Group's European Works Council

The Korian Group's European Works Council (EWC) officially held its inaugural meeting in Paris on Wednesday, 24 June 2020 with 36 delegates and alternates representing the Group's 56,000 employees in attendance.

Originally scheduled for March 25, this meeting had been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The agreement that established Korian’s European Works Council, which was signed on 29 April 2019, has been hailed as the first in the sector.

The meeting set up the various bodies of the EWC and elected Claude Vaussenat (France) as secretary and Martina Nickel (Germany) as deputy secretary, as well as its other members of the bureau, Gilberto Antonio Nieddu (Italy), Alejandro Ceballos Madrid (Spain) and Emie Avet (Belgium). The EWC then created permanent working groups focusing respectively on employment issues (hiring, training, mobility, workplace gender equality, diversity), as well as health, safety,occupational risk prevention and quality of work issues.

The EWC is at the core of the Group's commitment to improve social relations at European level and will complement the employment policies and industrial relations conducted at the level of each country where the Korian Group operates. Its goal is to encourage experience sharing, enhance cooperation between the countries where the Group does business and provide clearer information to employees about the social, economic, technological, environmental and cultural changes the Group will face»

The Korian EWC is assisted by the European Public Service Union (EPSU).

Sophie Boissard, Chief Executive Officer of the Korian Group, who chairs the EWC, attended to present the Group's strategy in the post-Covid environment. In particular, she stated: "I am delighted that Korian's European Works Council has been inaugurated today. It marks a new stage in the construction of open, responsible and mature industrial relations at European level, which advances Korian’s social contract in all countries where the Group operates in Europe and enables us to deliver on our ‘In Caring Hands’ promise in consultation with employee representatives."

At the conclusion of the meeting, EWC Secretary Claude Vaussenat expressed his satisfaction: "at having been elected the spokesperson for the employees of the various countries where the Korian Group operates. I am persuaded that this European body will be an excellent tool for promoting quality industrial relations.”