Recruiting and organising in the CEEC (3 days)
652.29.EOT

Category: Recruiting and organising

Date: 26 Jan 2007 - 28 Jan 2007

Working languages: English, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian

Participants: Trade union officers responsible for recruitment and organising

Aim:

To evaluate union recruitment and organising strategies and practices for union growth
To analyse organisational change and steps towards overcoming resistance to organisational change

After this course participants will be able to:

understand the importance of change in recruitment methods
consider introducing new recruitment methods

Introduction

Jan Willem Goudriaan, Deputy General Secretary of EPSU, opened the seminar and welcomed the participants representing 14 trade unions in health care, municipal services, energy (electricity and gas) water and waste, local and central government from Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. The aims of this training activity were:

To evaluate union recruitment and organising strategies and practices for union growth
To analyse organisational change and steps towards overcoming resistance to change

Jean-Claude Le Douaron, Education Officer at ETUI-REHS, explained the contents of the programme.

The state of play of organising in represented trade unions

The participants had been asked to prepare short presentations about recruitment and organising strategies of their trade unions according to the following questions:

Have you developed a programme to increase membership?
Have you targeted particular groups or sectors
Do you train local trade union leaders in how to increase membership?
If you have targeted specific workplaces in order to organise the workforce, can you please present a concrete example of how you planned such a recruitment activity?

The participants reported that their trade unions in many cases had conducted surveys among the the workforce in order to target recruitment activities. Several trade unions organise specific activities aiming at young workers. Information leaflets, websites, magazines and DVDs are used to inform the workforce about trade union activities and benefits given by collective agreements.

In some sectors privatisation and outsourcing have made it more difficult to represent the interest of the workforce. Restructuring in the energy sector implies in all tree countries job losses of about 20%.

In outsourced and privatised companies the negative attitude of employers towards trade union representation is increasing. Trade union mergers are sometimes seen as a remedy to decreasing trade union affiliation. Download the presentations and materials of this seminar from the Seminar documents

Trade union membership and the challenges for trade unions in Europe

Allan Kerr from the Organising and Training department of UNISON explained in his overview of the trade union situation in Europe that most of the affiliates had to face a decrease of membership the external and internal reasons for those trends. Rising unemployment, changes in the composition of the workforce, the attitude of employers as well as shortcomings of the trade union movement can be identified. Trade unions have attempted various strategies to counter those trends.

Identifying the obstacles

Liz Devonport, UNISON introduced a group activity during which the participants were asked to identify the main obstacles to recruitment of new members and the areas of common concern. The working groups identified those obstacles:

External obstacles

Presence in Media/ Voice in Media

Capitalist press does not reflect reality. Capital has impact on formulation of public opinion. Message that we receive is that you have to compete individually then as a member of the community (2x) (decreasing credibility ??)

Economic Situation/ Unemployment

Reforms/ restructruing leads to demotivation (2x)
No social dialogue in energy

Politics and Legal Situation

We are not treated as equals
Expectations not realized/ become politicians used positions for political gain.

Afraid to do union work; employer harassment

Afraid of managers
Afraid to take part in strikes
Bosses put on pressure on workers not to join union (or to leave union even) (so the can deal with them on an individual bases) (2x) (Difficulty to enter the workplace)

In discussion: Union busting raised with reference to US practice and many billion dollar anti-union consultancy industry.

(Solution: international cooperation/ use of ILO)

Obstacles inherent to trade union organisations

Lack of Resources

Membership fees (2x) (in comparison to services ???)

No focus, no organization, no action

more about leadership having positions; but do not deal with problems of trade union members; leadership does not have good image (2x)
Passivity of union to recruitment

Lack of cooperation/ trade union division

lack of cooperation/ division / large number of unions (sector and national level) (2x)
lack of coordination between unions
unions not well organised

Free rider problem

Collective agreements cover everybody, no reason to join; Members and non-members have same rights (3x)

Communication

Lack of communication with members (2x)

The UNISON experience

Allan Kerr explained that UNISON has adopted an organising approach. This takes into account the changing environment: 70% of the members in public services are women, the turn over in the workforce is about 10% meaning that about 150 000 members are leaving UNISON every year of which 25% are dissatisfied. Among the principles adopted are:

school campaigns
like recruits like
lay organising teams
regional pools

Mapping a work place

In order to demonstrate a technique for creating a picture of the current and potential union organisation and to analyse areas of organisational strength and potential areas for recruitment, the participants were asked to map a workplace including the group of workers, estimating their number and the potential membership as well as areas where union reps are present and current workplace issues.

Planning an issue based organising and recruitment campaign in a workplace

On the basis of those two workplaces described below the participants devised organising and recruitment campaigns

Hospital

Private hospital run by an international company, that contracts with the national health service and competes with public hospitals

Composition of work force based on workplace mapping

30 doctors/ 8 organised
76 nurses/ 57 organised
15 administrative staff/ 7
75 auxiliary staff and nurses aids/ 20
10 Kitchen/ 5 (threatened with outsourcing)

Has already happened to cleaning – 15 cleaners, only 4 still members, demonstrates that outsourcing leads to loss of members, treat to the union.

Energy call centre
Composition of work force
50 / 7 (transfer from customer service centre
Organisation of Administration staff not clear.

Issues

Many young workers
Health and safety issues
Temporary contracts

A new case study - role play

Planning an organising campaign

The context

Liberal government; hostile to unions.
Energy company outsourced the call centre which is now owned by an multinational company. This company is hostile to the trade unions (does not allow on the work place). There is no collective agreement, and employer does not respond to the trade union call to sign one.

The company: a call center in the energy sector

50 employees; 7 members of the trade union. Atmosphere of fear

calls are monitored to judge your performance
very strict working time rules/ breaks
permission needed for toilet visit
risks of dismissal if repeatedly sick
not allowed to speak during working hours
several workers complain of back pain and acoustic problems, repetitive strain injury
fixed term contracts – high turnover of staff
young workers
shift

You

You are a group of trade union members who meet with the local officer in the pub
Be realistic on what you can expect of the trade union members/ yourself.
(You are not the official)

Identifying the issues

What are the main issues ?
How do you find out if other workers share the issues ? Are you sure that all share / How do you find out ?
How do you identify the solutions ?

Chose one problem and solution and how are you doing

What issue offers the best chance of success ? Winnable issue ?
What aiming to achieve

How could you involve the staff in the call centre in this campaign ?

Remember: union meetings are not allowed
Involve workers ? How do you communicate ???
What Resource and facilities does your group have ?
How do you get support outside of the workplace
How do you use this campaign to recruit non union membership

Evaluate

Which campaign has the biggest chance of success?
To win?
To increase trade union recruitment?
vote for the campaign
Convince your colleagues - presentation

Campaigning for Quality Public Services in Europe

Jan Willem Goudriaan presented the EPSU campaign for Quality Public Services in Europe.

www.petitionpublicservice.eu

The management of change in trade unions

Allan Kerr introduce a group activity asking the participants to consider the lessons of this seminar and the implications of developing national or sectoral recruitment strategies in their unions.

www.petitionpublicservice.eu

www.epsu.org

www.etui-rehs.org

Sign the petition in favour of the Bulgarian doctors and nurses threaten with dead penalty in Lybia at http://www.nestesami.bg/main/index.php#