19 November, 2009Union communicators from all parts of the world met in Frankfurt to discuss union campaigns, innovative communication strategies and new media techniques at the first joint IMF-EMF Communicators' Forum.
GLOBAL: Over 50 participants from all continents of the world met in Frankfurt at the first European and International Metalworkers' Federations' Communicators' Forum hosted at IG Metall head-quarters on November 17-18.
The work of the Forum was organised around six sessions and provided opportunities for communication professionals and union officials representing IMF and EMF affiliates to share their experience on application of new media techniques, to review and strengthen union campaigns based on an effective communicators' network and to consider union organizing tactics and focus on the important issue of climate change.
The Session on Applications of new media and outcomes with participation of Valter Bittencourt (CNM-CUT), Rick Sloan (IAM) and Eric Lee (LabourStart) together with the insight provided by Marte Ingul, Communications' adviser of the Norwegian Labour Party, on effective web-based campaign strategies during the latest Parliament Elections in Norway, gave the participants a unique opportunity to understand how FaceBook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and many other modern web-based resources can be effectively used by trade unions in their daily work.
The Session on Organizing trade union members in the metalworking industry based on presentations by Vonny Diananto (FSPMI), Olga Masson (ITUA), Diana Petrova (Metalicy) and Caroline Jacobsson (EMF) as well as the next day related sessions on reviewing recent metalworkers' campaigns and Forum discussion on how to strengthen trade union rights campaigns helped participants to find out potential ways of organizing metalworkers, especially young people. The discussion also look at how to carry out effective global trade union campaigns on different issues of workers' concern across the globe and to discuss the most effective ways of distribution of information among the trade unions in order to protect trade union rights when and where it is needed.
The Forum also examined the issue of Climate change and the upcoming trade union participation in the Copenhagen meeting, and discussed ways of Building communication network and survey based on the European experience provided by Mans Martensson, multimedia manager of Eurofound, a European Union agency focused on improving the living and working conditions in Europe by managing research, gathering information and communicating its findings.
The Forum served as a successful basis for further improvement of joint global campaigning aimed at protecting labour rights and improving organising.
The presentations and other Forum materials are published on the IMF website at: www.imfmetal.org/communicators2009