EEF, formerly the Engineering Employers' Federation, works with manufacturing, engineering and technology-based businesses in the UK.
EEF is the largest sectoral employers' organisation in the UK.
It delivers services at national level and local level through a network of regional offices throughout England and Wales.
EEF provides businesses with advice, guidance and support in employment law, employee relations, health, safety, climate and environment, information and research and occupational health.
It also delivers training and consultancy in the UK and overseas.
Through offices in London and Brussels, EEF provides political representation on behalf of UK business in the engineering, manufacturing and technology-based sectors: lobbying government, MPs, regional development agencies, MEPs and European institutions.
EEF was formed in 1896 as the Engineering Employers' Federation and merged in 1918 with the National Employers' Federation. A history of the EEF cited in states that the original purpose of the EEF was "collective action to protect individual firms and local associations, the preservation of the ‘power to manage’, and the maintenance of industrial peace through established procedure." The EEF functioned as a 'Union' of Employers and negotiated from this stance with Trades Unions, for instance "twice, in 1897-8 and 1922, the Federation organised nationwide lock-outs. Procedural agreements for the avoidance of disputes were made with the unions at the conclusion of each of these lock-outs. These agreements provided for local and national joint conferences on disputed matters".
In November 2003 the EEF rebranded itself from the 'Engineering Employers' Federation' to 'EEF The Manufacturers' Organisation'.
The EEF archive is curated by Warwick University's Modern Records Centre.
Membership of EEF is corporate: organisations and companies are members, not the individuals that work for them.
Terry Scuoler Chief Executive, EEF
Dame Judith Hackitt DBE Chair, EEF
Paul Jennings, Finance Director, EEF
John Peel OBE