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28 June, 2010
Over 60 trade union leaders from 8 South-East European countries came to Opatia, Croatia, on 24 and 25 July, for an evaluation conference that was the final act of a 12-year long regional trade union support project.
The project, which organised a total of 329 national and international seminars, workshops and conferences, trained and informed leaders of around 60 affiliates of both the ICEM and the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association) on a multitude of trade union topics. In addition, it provided practical solidarity and it encouraged unions to consider necessary organisational changes, in order to set up better and more efficient trade union structures.
Participants spoke about how this project was one of the few initiatives that consistently and justly encouraged trade union cooperation and solidarity across borders in a region where that was not so evident.
Project Coordinator, Mato Lalic
Many provided examples on how they put lessons learned through the project to good practice, while others talked about how this project allowed them to engage in practical, useful and direct international work with unions in other countries, often in relation to privatisation struggles.
Without exception, all that took the floor also expressed their gratitude towards the project coordination team in Zagreb, led by Mato Lalic and assisted by Teuta Krilic and Jacim Milunovic. In particular Mato, who has been involved in the project from the very beginning, was thanked for his tireless enthusiasm and never-ending persistence.
Conclusions were not only drawn about the work done, past work was also coupled to future necessities. On that score, possibly the clearest conclusion was that, where a lot has already been done, there still is a lot more to do, in particular when it comes to the need for internal trade union structural change. Numerous unions stated, for example, that there is a growing urgency to redirect their trade union work towards the branch (or sectoral), regional and national levels, steering away from “company unionism”. Active organising and recruitment were listed as other vital priorities, including attracting women and young workers.
Peco Risteski, president of SIER, Macedonia
The evaluation conference was an end, but also a beginning, as it doubled as an opening event to discuss a new and different project for the region. Whereas the previous programme concentrated mainly on education, this new project, which will work with unions at different levels and different intensities in 9 different countries (Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia) will also be focusing on other priorities.
The new project is built on the conclusions that came out of an external evaluation of the previous project, which was carried out by Jochen Tholen, Professor at the University of Bremen. This evaluation can be found on the project’s web-site here in different languages (English, German, Serbian and Bulgarian).
Jochen Tholen, Bremen University Professor, Paul Andela, former President of both IUF and EFFAT
At the heart of the new project will be the effort to assist a limited number of trade unions in the region with adopting and implementing an individual organisational development plan. Once developed and adopted, the project will support unions with the implementation and monitoring of their plans. Additional work with a number of other unions, which have not been exposed to any prior project educational activities, will concentrate first at union building and education.
The second main element of the project will be concentrating on organising international seminars and conferences, to discuss topics such as sectoral research and/or EU issues, to encourage international solidarity and to exchange information, but also to debate the best practice examples that are coming out of the “organisational change work”.
Another novelty in this new project is that it will also work with trade unions from the metal sector, affiliates of the IMF and EMF (the International and European Metalworkers’ Federations), who will join the affiliates of the ICEM and its European counterpart EMCEF, as well as of the IUF and its European counterpart EFFAT.
The new project will be supported by donors FES from Germany and FNV Mondiaal from the Netherlands, as well as by IGBCE and NGG in Germany, and FNV Bondgenoten from Holland.