BEERG holds three member network meetings per year, in February, June and October. The February and October meetings are held in Brussels; the June meeting is held just south of Barcelona.

At BEERG meetings labour and employment relations professionals discuss issues of mutual concern, in confidence, in an informal environment. Our reception and dinner on the Wednesday evening provides members with an important networking opportunity in a relaxed setting. We regularly feature outside speakers from a range of stakeholder groups, such as: trade unions, EU Commission, national or international agencies with an interest in labour relations. In addition to our scheduled meetings we run “ad-hoc” meetings and briefing events on specific topics from time to time across Europe.

BEERG does not seek publicity or lobby for itself or its members but, where appropriate, it does make submissions to EU institutions and EU member state governments on a range of issues that matter to the employee relations sector, such the transposition of European Directives into national law and GDPR. We have had dialogues with national governments and EI institutions on how proposed changes in domestic employment law would impact the international business community.

BEERG was established to help HR and employee relations executives and specialists and in-house labor counsel with pan-European employee relations issues in general and with issues involving European Works Councils in particular. BEERG is the only employers’ grouping with its own EWC database which allows us to provide members with up-to-the minute information on how best to manage EWCs based on “best practice” among peer companies.

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 OECD.

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 Agreements. 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.