About us

Created on 11 December 2000, EFFAT is the “European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture, and Tourism sectors and allied branches” (EFFAT/IUF-Europe). The EFFAT/IUF-Europe headquarters are in Brussels. EFFAT/IUF-Europe is an organisation of independent and democratic trade unions representing all workers in the Food, Agriculture, Tourism, and Domestic Workers sectors as well as other related sectors, services, and activities in Europe.

As the umbrella organisation of 116 national trade unions from 37 European countries, EFFAT defends the interests of more than 25 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 globally.

In recent years, EFFAT has set up European Works Councils in more than 100 transnational groups and has a successful European sectoral social dialogue underway in – among others – the agriculture, hotel & restaurant, contract catering, sugar, food, and drink sectors.