EFFAT is the European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors resulting from a merger concluded between two European trade union federations - the ECF-IUF and EFA - on 11 December 2000. As a European Federation representing 120 national trade unions from 35 European countries, EFFAT defends the interests of more than 22 million workers towards the European Institutions, European industrial federations and enterprise management.
EFFAT is an autonomous European trade union federation. As a member of the ETUC, EFFAT promotes its members' interests in all European interprofessional issues jointly and with strength. As a regional organisation within the IUF, EFFAT also defends its members' interests world- and sector-wide.
In recent years EFFAT has set up European Works Councils in more than 100 transnational groups and has a successful social dialogue underway in - among others - the agriculture, hotel & restaurant, contract catering, sugar and tobacco sectors.
EFFAT supports its member organisations in Central and Eastern Europe to develop free and solid trade unions. For many years EFFAT has given its support to the sustainable development of agrofood and tourism policy in which ethical, social and ecological aspects are considered. Only safe and high quality food can also guarantee safe jobs and working conditions.