The project DIRECT, promoted by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), is focused on trends in direct employee participation in six EU Member States (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the UK) aiming to determine the extent of direct participation in the various countries, to compare different national trends and to analyse the reasons for the development of direct participation, and the barriers to its implementation, to identify the impact of direct participation on the employment relationship at company level including employee representation, information, consultation and participation arrangements, collective bargaining and dispute resolution procedures, workplace satisfaction and employee motivation, productivity and the competitiveness of the enterprise - and in general to promote the positive impact direct participation can have as a means to improve employee representation and industrial relations at the company level supporting improvements in management-workers relations and national and enterprise-levels social dialogue.
The project will include various research activities, seminars and workshops, including a final conference. Dissemination of the results will be through publications and the creation of a project website. The main target groups are trade union representatives at company level; other workers representatives; workers and employees; enterprise managers; trade union and employer organisations at the EU and Member State level; and national and EU policy-makers.