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About beerg

The Brussels European Employee Relations Group is an information-sharing and networking group established in 2003 and now with more than 50 member companies headquartered in various Member States of the European Union, the United States, India and Japan.

The BEERG group meets over two days, Wednesday and Thursday, three times a year.  The meetings take place in February, June and October, in Brussels. The BEERG approach to meetings is based on serious, employment relations professionals discussing and debating important issues with one another, in confidence, in an informal environment.  Our reception and dinner on the Wednesday evening provides members with an important networking opportunity and, from time to time, feature outside speakers from trade unions, the European Commission or national or international agencies with an interest in labour relations.

We also have a growing network of “BEERG sub-groups”. Currently we have such groups in the UK, France and Ireland. They meet several times a year and focus on national developments in employment law and labor relations.

 

Where appropriate, we have made submissions to governments on the transposition of European Directives into national law and have opened a dialogue with both government ministers and officials on how proposed changes in domestic employment law would impact the international business community.

BEERG member companies have a substantial organisational footprint in the 30 countries within the scope of the European Works Council Directive.  BEERG was originally set up to help HR and Employee Relations executives and specialists get to grips with pan-European employee relations issues and to assist them in implementing European business strategies effectively through well planned and executed employee relations interventions at the European and national levels.

Increasingly, our members have asked that we broaden our services to take account of the continuing globalisation of business and the employee relations issues that come with it. We provide advice and guidance to members companies on the provisions of the international labor codes of the ILO, the UN and OEC. We help members to understand global trade union strategies and advise than on how to deal with international corporate campaigns and requests from Global Union Federations to negotiate International Framework Agreement. We also assist members to manage labor-related corporate social responsibility matters in the company’s own facilities and in the facilities of their supply and distribution chains contractors.

Besides our Brussels meetings, BEERG membership benefits include;

  • Information on European Union employment law and social policy initiatives;
  • The opportunity to meet  with key EU decision makers to discuss the content of proposed legislation;
  • “Reflective”  and “flash”  reports on transnational employee relations developments and international trade union organisation and strategies;
  • A  weekly newsletter highlighting important employee relations developments across Europe and globally;
  • The HR Policy weekly update on US labor relations developments;
  • Informal peer-to-peer benchmarking and information sharing on key employee relations questions;
  • Regular BEERG and HR Policy member publications, such as our comprehensive Guide to the 2009 EWC Directive;
  • Quarterly webinars on key international employee relations issues.