Guidelines on Socially-Sensitive Labour Force Restructuring in South Eastern Europe

These guidelines set out the main ways in which organisations can contribute to the socially-sensitive restructuring of the labour force.

The report highlights practical considerations such as:

• The roles that social dialogue can play at national, sectoral and company level.
• The role of workforce consultation, beginning with how restructuring plans should be announced to the workforce, how the workforce should be informed and consulted about the restructuring, and how negotiations concerning restructuring should be conducted.
• The measures that can be put into place to lessen the impact of restructuring.
• If redundancies are inevitable, the range of measures that can be implemented to cushion their impact.

After considering these issues, in connection with the case study examples annexed to these Guidelines, a range of best practices and lessons learned are identified.