From 6 to 7 December 2023 took place in Zagreb / Croatia a seminar about “Capacity building for workers' organizations in the Western Balkans using digital tools”, organized by EUROFEDOP (Europese Federatie van het Overheidspersoneel), in cooperation with EZA and funded by the European Union. The seminar was organized within the framework of the EZA Special project for workers’ organisations in the Western Balkans.
Wednesday, 06.12.2023
Opening speeches and welcome
The seminar on the use of digital tools in trade union work started with an introductory speech by the Croatian Member of Parliament Erik Fabijanić, Chairman of Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation, who highlighted the consequences of EU accession in his country. The labour market was strongly affected, as well as labour costs. In the public sector, there seemed to be hope for good agreements, but the current circumstances had the effect that salaries in the public sector are lower than in other sectors.
President of EUROFEDOP, Norbert Schnedl, stressed that amidst ongoing and rapid digital transformation, trade unions need to actively engage with digital tools and use AI, while ensuring effective social dialogue in a society based on Christian values. Exchange of experience on the application of online tools and on how to use AI is essential. The President encouraged trade union representatives to actively take up suggestions by experts and work on the development of such online tools.
Bert Van Caelenberg (EUROFEDOP) highlighted the advantages when Members of Parliament have good relations with or even work for trade unions, as in Croatia. On the European level, cooperation between trade union representatives and MEPs seems to be increasingly difficult and cumbersome.
Digital tools in trade union work
Klaus Schömann, Professor of Social Sciences, spoke about the potentials of digital technologies both in private and public life, and on how to find ways as a trade union to move from the indirect level - where few represent a multitude - to a more inclusive approach. In addition to addressing and getting more members and reaching broader audiences, digital tools can also be used for voting and organising or mobilizing huge crowds. Mr Schömann furthermore raised questions about the need for control over communication, documents and data. He also highlighted that in practice, online and offline forms coexist for organizing, voting, deciding and campaigning. Discussions following his presentation centered upon the combination of online and offline methods, different needs and approaches of different age groups.
During the second part of his presentation, the professor presented concrete tools that trade unions could use, and touched upon examples such as “Unionbook” and the dbb’s social media channels. In general, an organization can reduce and focus communication on 1-2 actively used channels. They need to train and build on their own influencers, who enable the trade unions’ communication to be powerful. During the discussions, the success of big platforms and handling data was touched upon, as well as a sensibility related to what we can learn from data and how we can use it.
Hermes Augusto Costa, Centre for Social Studies, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal), started with a provocative question, asking if trade unionism was in a crisis.
After an analysis of explanatory factors for a crisis, he presented three strategies often suggested as key to revitalizing organised labour’s reach and influence: grassroots organizing, coalition building and connection labour issues with a broader social and environmental justice agenda. Mr Costa also presented a short overview of the evolution of the internet from a unidirectional tool (for information dissemination) to a bi-directional network (multimodal and horizontal). He went on to talk about hybridization – increasingly interconnected online and offline dimensions, as well as about the influence of digital spaces in identity formation.
His colleague Bia Carneiro continued their presentation by presenting her research on assessting trade unions’ use of social media platforms from a comparative perspective. Analysing the question how the trade union movement uses social media platforms to support trade union renewal through alliance building, outreach and expanding its agenda yielded quite negative results, but also gives us concrete ideas what to work on. The analysed trade unions’ online interactions seem to be largely restricted to organisations within immediate sphere of influence of confederations, reinforcing existing micro-systems and hampering opportunities for coalition building. Confederations reach a limited audience on social media. The “one-way” model of online communication prevails, where Facebook is used mostly to relay information and raise awareness, which in turn does not reach out to or connect with audiences beyond the traditional circle of members and partners. In addition, the thematic focus is mostly on traditional labour issues. This way, special interest groups are sparsely and inconsistently targeted in the content shared by confederations.
Concludingly, one can say that trade unions need to change their approach and invest more resources in focusing their online communication on outreach and conveying/asking for opinions, thereby reaching out to a broader audience. This in turn will help them form new alliances and strengthen their social power.
Viorel Rotila, EUROFEDOP Vice-President and Professor of Work Relations and Social Dialogue at the University of Galați (Romania), combined a philosophical approach to the topic with the concrete success story of the FSSR’s online communication activities. On the philosophical level, he elaborated on the status of knowledge, where our interventions based on knowledge gained through modern technologies cause an increase in complexity, which leads to an increase in unpredictability. In coping with this challenge, flexibility and adaptability seem to be the right solutions.
While opportunities in digitalization seem to be plenty, most organizations still do not seem to extend their horizons or membership numbers. Mr Rotila added in this regard, that it is mostly the decisionmakers’ level in a trade union, that quickly needs to understand, adapt and explore new technologies. The impact of new technologies on unions takes place on two different levels: at the level of the union members, such as regarding work tasks, adaptability, and employability; and at the level of the functioning of trade unions: administrative management, relations with members, communication, and so forth. For FSSR, Facebook presented a development opportunity, as it circumvented dependence on mass-media and its restrictions, the union capitalized on the advantage of initiative and synchronized with the trend of the majority. Mr Rotila’s advice for trade unions is to have their own social network, use multiple digital resources, and joint verification – both people and AI.
The three experts’ presentations were followed by a vivid exchange between scientists and questions by the audience.
Riho Terras, Estonian MEP, provided background information about his political party Isaama, which is part of the EPP family and the oldest party in Estonia. Mr Terras explained that Estonians are proud about their successes in the field of IT and digitalization, as well as the PISA results. Computer learning was introduced very early, and the successes of Estonian egovernance are well-known. People can already vote remotely, and voting by mobile phone is currently being discussed. During the last election, 50% of Estonian voters voted online, which shows a high trust in the digitalization process. The basic concept behind Estonia’s push for digitalization is to limit bureaucracy and enable interaction. Digitalization all started from public support and its basis is that different parts of society agree on the same goals and work together in this process.
Mr Patrick Reisinger, Head of Digital Skills at the Agency for Education and Internationalisation from Austria, talked about the evolution of the internet and social platforms. The biggest reason to use internet is still to get information. However, one needs to create awareness of what happens on the internet and “how much” of it happens. Mr Reisinger presented numbers that highlight “how much” happens, meaning which interactions, such as Likes, new connections, sales, stories and content shared etc. take place on different platforms within one minute. The biggest challenge of digitalization is cyber criminality. Therefore, digital competence is the basis to counteract fake news and cyber attacks.
Thursday, 07.12.2023
The second day of the seminar started with the Introduction to “Working Group sessions: Formulation of questions and working plan”.
Taking into account the objectives of the West Balkan projects, an overview was first given by the organizations present regarding their "Social Dialogue" situation.
The representative of Montenegro spoke for the Local Authorities and the Ministries sector: the administration is still dominated by political appointments. The introduction of real management is confronted with the failure of the social inspection.
The delegate of TUTM (Montenegro), Telecom sector, emphasized that despite the many efforts of the staff, it is very difficult to follow the technological evolution.
For Serbia there would be a wage adjustment from 01.01.2024. This is not enough to compensate for inflation. The delegate of AUCIS (Serbia) took her own actions and involved the media. The responsible minister promised to sit at the negotiating table before the end of 2023.
The delegate of JEFS (Serbia) informed that the justice sector has been hit by a massive staff shortage. The average age of civil servants is 55 years. There is a battle going on over basic rights and financial arrangements. Social dialogue is minimal and there are 2 million judicial files waiting to be processed. The delegate concluded with the question: "How can we include staff, over 50 years old, in the digital changes? How can we attract young members?
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the Republic Srpska, there have been agreements since 2016. We are talking about a capital-strong Telecom sector. The remaining sectors continue to lag behind. But this has not stopped the brain drain... how do we retain our union members?
The representative of SindFISC (Romania), sector Ministry of Finance, informed that they are a young organization (since 2016), but have the status of social partner in the negotiations. Success in recruiting members included offering social insurance for staff.
The members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Bulgaria) founded a police union in 2009. TUFEMI is a member of EPU, and is therefore automatically member of EUROFEDOP. They set up their first campaign by actively using the internet. Their public actions were not easy given the difficult political situation. The first protest had 800 participants, now 12,000. They maintain good relations with the confederations. Their budget, salaries 2023 has increased by 6 million Euro, which is a recognition of their actions.
Speaking for Ireland was the representative of PDFORRA (Defense sector), which achieved this year success in being recognized as a military trade union. The recognition by the government opens the doors for them to sit at the negotiating table as a trade union (with restrictions). A catch-up operation after the crisis years is on the table today.
Furthermore, there were interventions from SLOVES (Slovakia), who hope that the new rules will upgrade the public service. They emphasized that small municipalities do not have the necessary IT equipment to function properly.
In North Macedonia dialogue exists. But in the postal sector are no real results. In the Telecom sector there is more money and better results.
After this interesting information from the organizations, Dr. Klaus Schömann was in charge of managing theme 1.
Tamara Golis took the floor for theme 2. She asked about the use and experiences of online webinars. She concluded: there is a need for training. It's simple, but many unions in the West Balkans do not use this tool yet! There are still many physical meetings to come. Hybrid meetings are preferred by those present in the meeting room. Legal restrictions apply mainly to the Police sector and Public Services.
The organizations that opted for IT years ago have certainly benefited from it.
Platforms are good, but who will manage them? Podcast has been a hit for some organisations. There is debate about how long these podcasts should be to successfully gain attention. Others use TikTok, which quickly created 200,000 followers. If you want to remain attractive, you should opt for short information with photos, which is especially popular with young people.
When asked "Digital technologies in trade unions, why?", Dr. Klaus Schömann initiated a debate.
In conclusion, they agreed that trade unions are still lagging behind. An important element here is the financial possibilities. Despite the availability of technology, members still want personal contact.
Learning after the age of 50 is possible, but depends on the sectors in which they are employed.
If members do not follow the digitalisation, actions must be taken. Efforts to train, learn from the young people, and put the two generations together, can bring progress.
Finally, the Secretary General thanks the participants, speakers, interpreters and the technician for their excellent work. He wished all participants a safe journey back home!