ITUC Membership in CEE.Tendencies and

Challenges

CEE Organising activities

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I The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 155 countries and

territories and has 311 national affiliates

Around 49707000 members come from CEE (28 %)

35 organisations 21 countries

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Challenges Unions Have to Face

Lack of experience;There are no professional organisers;Existing TU structures do not fit to organising;Financing;There is no strategic planning;Not enough activities with youth;New economy sectors and informal economy;The lack of basic knowledge about trade union rights and ILO Conventions;Legal obstacles (SMEs, written contracts etc.)

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2001-2007 activities

40 national and subregional events1000 participants from 27 states;7 national pilot programmes;3000 people involved

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4 key factors of successful organising

It is necessary to remember and use daily 4 key factors of successful organising:

to allot and attract more financial means for organising;to involve good professionals;to prepare and realise the strategic plan;to mobilise all union members for organising activities.

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RECOMMENDATIONS (1)

It is necessary to prepare a long-term realistic strategic plan and mechanisms of its implementation;

Structural reforms and changes are necessary to adapt existing TU structures to organising;

It is necessary to foresee a long-term financing including annual TU budgets,

Youth activities should not end with the creation of a formal structure;

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RECOMMENDATIONS (2)Professional selection and preparation of organisers, formation of a good organisers’ team;

IT should be used as efficiently as possible;

It is necessary to develop closer co-operation with other TU departments;

Organising campaigns in new economy fields and informal economy;

Work with migrants;

Use of international information and experience;

Basic education and information on TU rights and main ILO Conventions, promotion of the code of conducs.

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PERC programme: challenges (1)

Persisting decline of the trade union membership. In some countries, the trade union density comes closer to 8 % of the workforce, and nobody could say that this trend would not go downer than this.

Uneven repartition of the trade union implementation. In some sectors – education, public services, in general, but also, in the former big-state owned companies, where trade unions were traditionally well-represented – the trade union density is still substantial, but this is unfortunately not the case in plenty of other economic sectors. In the private sectors, in SME in particular, very often in the MNEs, in the sector of services, the trade unions tend, sometimes, to come close to inexistence. This is particularly worrying, considering the evolution of the structure of the economy in Europe.

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PERC programme: challenges (2)

Fragmentation and “informalisation” of the labour relations, with the multiplication of temporary contracts, multiplication of the employees status – including the trend to engage employees as “independent workers” even when there is a clear and obvious relation of work subordination, increase of the number of workers working without any contract (“informal economy”).

Poor integration in the trade union movement of the young workers, of the women, of the minority groups.

Fragmentation of the trade union movement: lack of interest from the local union to join a national TU centre; multiplication, and sometimes unhealthy rivalries between professional unions; divisions of trade union centres, related to various crisis; competition between trade union centres, etc.

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PERC programme: directions (1)

Analyse the evolution of the trade union membership in the different countries - including gender and age composition, in correlation with technological, economic and political development;Assist the national unions in designing their own approaches and to define where accumulated “best practices” could be further referred to, pilot actions initiated, and training programmes could be implemented or encouraged; Support and encourage development of confederal strategies which enhance organising, prioritise the need for evolution of the structures, their professional services and financing, liaising with their members and potential members;

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PERC programme: directions (2)

Establish cooperation with the EIFs/ GUFs and their affiliated unions, on cross-border and regional level, be it within certain MNEs or targeted on specific professional groups; promote strategies among affiliated organisations to organise, represent and protect the most vulnerable working women and men, such as those employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, migrants and those engaged in informal economic relations; work for the organisation of workers employed in special economic zones and in other situations where international support is especially important;

Work for the unionisation of young workers, whose entry into the job market is increasingly insecure, in order to help them attain lasting employment, and women, through specific campaigning activities and networking.

Strive against informal economy; promote a “rule-of-law” approach in all labour relations; promote the inclusion of all categories of workers in some social protection system; encourage all the workers that are in a de facto relation of labour subordination to organise and to join the unions.

Encourage building of trade union identity, with encouraging cross-border representation mechanisms and bilateral cooperation and exchange of organisers with aim to organise migrant workersbetween trade union centres, etc.

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PERC programme: activities

-Setting up a task force-Follow-up on sub-regional basis

-Informal economy activities-Migration dimension

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PERC task force setting (preparatory meeting),

May 2008

-to map out different organizing initiatives run by national centers and

to start fixing agenda for the task force

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PERC task force setting: models

identified1. Classic organizing model. The national centre is not doing direct organizing, leaving this area to its national affiliates. The confederation assists and provides general coordination, in particular, when an arbitrage between competing unions is necessary. 2. Solidarnosc’ model. The national centre plays direct role in organizing, through its territorial structures, where organizers work. Workers are becoming union members through regional branches and then their union can subscribe to industrial union. The membership fees go to regional Solidarnosc branch and then to the national centre itself that remits certain percentage to national unions. 3. Co-acting model. The national centre defines the areas of strategic importance and engages organizers (directly or through regional structures) that work on union setting at certain enterprises. The unions join then one of the national unions.

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PERC task force setting: specific

aspectsSeparately shall be considered cases of “setting new union” affiliated to the national centre, in particular, of the workers involved in informal labour activities. There is a need to bring union leaders of these organizations together for some further exchange;Some unions are employing migrants to organise their co-natives, in most of the cases these organizers have no link with the unions of their mother countries, there is a need to facilitate cross-border union discussions, to see how these organsers are engaged and what can be their usefulness for the unions of their mother countries;Vital role of trade union education and training in preserving the new organizations and upbringing new leaders and the need to review the existing materials and to build up some simple course / guide on this.

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PERC task force setting: conclusions

promoting enabling environment for organizing, in terms of implementation of the international labour standards, norms of European social charter and principles of European social model;setting up a platform for exchange of information and practices, to analyze different organizing and union development strategies, motivation of different groups of workers, and labour market developments;training and education, in terms of facilitation of internal discussions in unions that priorities organizing, and are interested in reforming its structures to accommodate this priority, and in terms of setting up a basic course on organizing, and on preserving organizations;facilitating global campaigns and building solidarity in the specific situations, working closely with Global Union Federation and European Industrial Federations;ensuring coordination and targeting of development cooperation programmes, and actually “channeling of resources” for strengthening national organizations and their organizing initiatives;

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PERC task force setting: next stepsto continue working on setting up of a task force and to work in cooperation with the ETUI-REHS team on selected priorities, in particular:

by prioritizing “Pan-European” MNE that could be campaign target on European level;by contributing to analysis on motivation and interests of specific groups and categories of workers. ;

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PERC officers in charge

Anton Leppik, PERC-HQ, anton.leppik@ituc-csi.org

Sergeus Glovackas, PERC-Vilnius, ituc.vilnius@post.5ci.lt

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