Sense out of uncertainty, HR without borders
Welcome to the World’s leading organisation for multinational employers.
Successful employers belong to FedEE because we provide the kind of fast, practical, affordable, high quality and far-sighted service that gives successful HR professionals the special edge they require to stay ahead of the game. An illustration of this is the fact that we have predicted not only 9/11, the 2007/8 meltdown, the Brexit result, the pandemic (six months before it happened) – as well as the latest surge of hyperinflation, back in May 2020. One FedEE Member put it this way.
“I do not have the time to brief outsiders and start worrying about professional fees before I can get a job done. I just need someone I can trust who will give me an honest second opinion and help me sort things out so that I can move onto other things. My company cannot carry all the expertise about international HR laws and practices it needs in-house – so the next best thing is FedEE. You have no equal and those who do not know about you do not know what they are missing.”
Above all, we are politically neutral and independently funded by our Members – with no financial support from governments, quangos or pressure groups. We also receive no revenue from advertisers or sponsors.
❖Join our top Multinationals: We are Chaired by the Ford Motor Company, whilst Latham and Watkins – the world’s second largest law firm – is on our board. In fact, 40% of the top global companies are FedEE corporate members.
❖ Legal Counsel: FedEE Members have access to our legal knowledgebase, helpline and customised legal services.
❖Monitoring Global Developments: We track laws, legal cases, HR practices and key developments in a timely and practical way.
❖FedEE Actively Lobbies governments around the World. We act as a ‘think tank’, developing common policies and advising on practical ways to deregulate. We also involve Members through our Multinational Policy Alliance (MPA). So why not join and get involved?
❖Have you amended your organisation’s employment contracts to comply with the EU Directives on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions and Work-Life Balance? We have developed a template to assist you to incorporate the principal contractual changes. Do not ignore the need for compliance – the changes were due back in early August 2022.
International HR Answers in Seconds
FedEE was developed to provide a “right hand” professional support service to those in multinational HR departments.
We focus on key developments so you can get on with your core day-to-day activities. You do not need a legal database containing 1000s of new laws and court cases to read every day, nor do you have the time to wait for a call-back from a law firm – but you do need to know if your company faces a new employer obligation in a particular country, if a key deadline is coming up on the radar, or how to resolve a difficult employee problem in real-time.
FedEE also produces news reports you would never receive from any other source. This is partly because we monitor changes in over 30 languages. We also have a tiered support system so that if you need to know more, you may go to our online knowledgebase, or simply call our multinational helpline. 85% of helpline enquiries are resolved within two hours, after just one direct call to an Advisor. Our service is also multi-user – so several colleagues may access it in their own right. Few lawyers have hands on HR experience and so their guidance is often rigid, obscure and off the mark. We go beyond the law and aim at finding practical, management solutions that stick and make good economic sense.
You could probably secure a near alternative to FedEE by hiring a talented HR professional with years of working in many jurisdictions and industry sectors, then by arming them with numerous costly online legal database subscriptions – or you could simply sign up to FedEE at fraction of the cost. That is perhaps why many HR departments around the World have relied on FedEE for over three decades.
Examples of Issues We Review:
❖A recent landmark court decision in Malaysia has been the first to challenge the country’s Islamic laws concerning sexual orientation.
❖We chart emerging pandemic threats as they happen. Our expertise in Epidemiology allows us to track and evaluate new viruses and variants of existing ones.
❖How many US States now ban the use of non-compete clauses and which is the latest?
❖Are casual workers unlawful in Australia? We show you why not.
❖What statutory profit sharing obligation exists in Mexico? When are payouts due?
❖What has happened to the legal loophole in Belgium that allowed employers to hire workers on a succession of alternating temporary and replacement contracts?
❖May an employer in Kenya dismiss an employee serving a probationary period “at will”?
❖What are the HR data retention periods around the World?
❖Which multinational companies are leading the way in introducing new-style work practices?
The FedEE Story
FedEE was supported initially by the European Commission.
FedEE Services
FedEE offers a range of “must have” services to the Multinational employers.
FedEE Achievements
Some achievements since foundation in 1988.
Aftermath
FedEE’s frightening analysis concerning prospects for a post-pandemic World.
Services Tailored for You
Your Employment Law Questions Answered – Practically and Fast
If a quick check of the FedEE Knowledgebase does not come up with all the details you are looking for then the FedEE legal helpline is just a phone call, or email message, away. We seek to answer all email questions raised within four working hours. In fact, over 90% of telephone enquiries about our core 35 countries are resolved during a 15-minute call.
Updating Your HR Policies to Comply with Statutes and Rulings
The most constant concern that arises in our periodic member surveys concerns the updating of HR policies. If a policy is out of date, and thus at variance with the law, or phrased in an ambiguous way a company can find itself being challenged by employees with whom they are in dispute, an ex-employee or a factory inspector. All policies should therefore ideally be reviewed on an annual basis. FedEE offers a policy review service that could be just for one policy in a single jurisdiction, a complete handbook or for multiple countries. This service is at a fraction of the cost charged by a conventional law firm.
Let FedEE-Legal provide you with the employment law assistance you need during the current crisis
FedEE Legal are Legal Counsel to the Federation. We offer expert advice, information and support at less cost and much faster than an old-style legal firm. Our expertise is also based on a depth of international HR experience and is led by a former Advisor to The European Commission and the ICO who also has a track record in mining, electronics and engineering. We cover over 120+ country jurisdictions, plus federal laws, from a single international centre. For statutory reasons FedEE Legal is not open to non-members of the Federation. Call us today on (+44) 203 807 9205 or email enquiries@fedee.com.
Ask FedEE Legal’s research team to undertake an investigation into a difficult legal challenge, or brief you on a particular jurisdiction
We have undertaken numerous customised research exercises for major public and private organisations to assess, for instance, the best jurisdiction and labour market for expansion into Eastern Europe, restructure the business, convert independent advisors into permanent employees, or set out all the steps necessary for a major transfer of undertakings. We specialise in M&A HR legal strategy – and in 2019 we were a key player in one of the largest mergers in recent times.
Becoming a multinational for the first time? Let FedEE help reduce the delays and risks
Membership of FedEE will be an invaluable aid to successful growth in other countries. Not only can we show you how to avoid the legal pitfalls, but can put you in touch with local service providers and provide statistics to help you assess things like the size and nature of local labour markets.
OPINION: FedEE Secretary-General
Spanish challenge to multicompany collective agreements
Easily the biggest injustice currently in the labour market is to be found in the process of collective bargaining.
For many decades sectoral collective agreements across the European continent have been concluded by an often minority of companies in the sector and then extended by government decree, or the agreement itself, to all companies operating in the sector. This practice is not only highly uncompetitive and undemocratic, but also open to abuse by a core of established enterprises that wish to raise labour costs for smaller enterprises and new entrants.
In Spain this practice of extension is commonly exercised by the negotiating parties themselves and a recent case finally exposes its weakness. In a Supreme Court case (255/2023) a collective agreement for Supermarkets was challenged because it imposed a requirement for temporary employment agencies (ETT) to pay employees 10% more than if they were employed directly by the end-user. However, the court sided with the ETT, declaring that a:
“collective agreement cannot contain mandatory clauses that affect those who are not part of the negotiation, nor can its normative content establish working conditions that companies that were not included in its scope of application would have to assume” This is because “a collective agreement negotiated without sufficient representativeness for it, alters this rule of pay equalization, increasing the salary costs of the ETT, distorts the scheme desired by the legislator.”
Although this ruling has remained obscure, its significance is enormous – as it finally provides a strong position from which to oppose not only the process of “extension”, but also possibly to question the credibility of mulicompany collective bargaining itself.
Press Releases and Newswires
White papers
FedEE Member companies gain access to a wealth of information and guidance.
Press Releases
Examples of past press releases distributed to media, newspapers and agencies.
Past Newswires
Examples of our fortnightly newswires sent to all FedEE Member organizations.
Join FedEE Today
Many of the world’s largest multinational companies already belong to The Federation of International Employers (FedEE®). We have a Worldwide Membership – with particular concentrations in North America, Western Europe, India and Japan. We were founded in 1988 and are regularly voted by our Members as an organisation they would recommend to other multinationals.
If your company has over 150 employees in two or more countries, has its own in-house HR department, and has been operating for two or more years then you really cannot afford to operate without being part of the Federation. The approval process takes less than a day and for immediate access to our services we have an online credit card payment facility. Membership costs as little as €998.00 a year. Please check here to view the table of our membership services. Sign up now.
What Next?
Once a completed application has been received it will be quickly reviewed by our Membership Review Group and, if approved, we shall send an email to the applicant confirming acceptance – normally within 24 hours. The Secretary-General also usually calls to welcome all new members.
Our letter of confirmation will have an attached invoice containing our bank details to allow payment. The membership fee may be settled by bank transfer within 35 days or, on request, via a credit card payment link. As soon as the fee has been settled we shall send out passwords to all nominated users and place them on our Newswire list. At the end of each subscription year we shall write inviting the Corporate Member to renew. 94% of Members renew at this time.
Membership renewal is not automatic, but we shall retain membership for a certain period to allow for continuity. Helpline bundles may be purchased at any time and unused enquiries in the bundles do not expire whilst membership is retained.
Contact Us
Address, email, telephone numbers and on line payments so you can get in touch from anywhere around the world.
Senior Management Team
Introducing our key staff and Board Members.
Training and Events
The World’s advanced professional transnational law training course.
Clear Thinking
Most people are not taught to think and few realize that clear thinking originates in perceptions and personal identity.
COMMENT: What is happening to the global economy
For the past two and a half years, FedEE has been predicting a major economic downturn once the post-pandemic bounceback “health honeymoon” period has ended. The fall has already happened for the USA and UK. Please click here to view a recent edition of ‘Labour Market Trends’.
What recession means is that GDP and stocks fall heavily and hyperinflation hangs around to make things worse. US GDP has actually fallen each quarter since Q1 2022. The CPI remains very high and stock prices are greatly overvalued. Now a global recession is likely this year in all major countries, except Australia and India.
Driving the recession are the past slack monetary policies of major governments around the World, that printed money in vast quantities as GDP levels fell. The dilution of the US dollar has been particularly spectacular – with M3 growing by over 40% since February 2020.
The only major economy that remained relatively well-managed during the pandemic was Japan. However, although the UK and USA have ceased to print money it may already be too late. Tech companies around the world are still bleeding jobs in greater numbers.
THERE IS A NEED TO MOVE NOW TO AVERT THE COMING CRISIS
The US continues to carry a huge deficit in its balance of payments and public sector borrowing constantly hits its ceiling so that the government cannot pay its debts. The World’s treatment of the US$ as the default currency of choice is a big mistake.
in Europe, governments are reacting – not by the sensible course of containing spending, being austere and riding out the storm, but by throwing large amounts of public spending at subsidies, with the UK planning to borrow heavily on the prospect of a future prosperity it may never enjoy and Greece is already devoting 3.7% of its faltering GDP on support measures (the highest in Europe).