From 29 November to 2 December 2023 took place in Santarém / Portugal a course within the framework of the EZA “Young leaders” courses, organized by CFTL (Centro de Formação e Tempos Livres), in cooperation with EZA and funded by the European Union.
Introduction
The main aim of this report is to chronologically record the work carried out on the Course for Future Leaders of Workers' Organisations (hereinafter referred to as the Course), the methodologies and communication tools used and the evaluation of the organisers and promoters of the Course, i.e. the Centre for Training and Leisure (CFTL) and the Base-Unitarian Front of Workers (BASE-FUT).
Methodologies
The course work was planned and carried out with the following objectives in mind:
To provide critical knowledge about labour dynamics in the EU;
To provide critical knowledge and historical experiences of communication in workers' organizations;
To provide critical knowledge on conflict management and collective bargaining;
To provide skills in work in group and public speaking;
To mobilise for leadership and integration into social and trade union organisations.
Valorise:
The history of the working class movement, particularly Christian worker movements;
Organisational and trade union experience;
Leadership and action on the field;
Interaction and exchange;
Teamwork
Pedagogical tools/techniques:
Oral presentations with and without the support of powerpoint presentations
Group and plenary work
Workshops
Carrying out the course
The course took place over three days, with six working sessions, including panels with speakers and the subsequent final debate, group work and workshops. A final evaluation was carried out by all the participants in presence, together with the organisers.
Wednesday 29 November 2023
On this day, the Portuguese, French and Polish participants arrived and were welcomed at the Santarém Hotel, located in the city of Santarém, in the centre of Portugal.
Thursday 30 November 2023
The opening session of the course took place in the morning with the participation of:
João Paulo Branco, CFTL's Director of Management and Finance
Pedro Estevão, National Coordinator of BASE-FUT
Joseph Thouvenel, Vice-President of the EZA and Confederal Secretary of the CFTC, France.
The participants and speakers were welcomed, the objectives of the training were mentioned, the partners in this project were introduced: EZA, CFTL, BASE-FUT, CFTC and EDS-FNS, and each of the participants was given the floor to introduce themselves and state their expectations about the course.
The participants said they hoped that this course would enable them to acquire more theoretical and technical skills and to learn more about the differences in each country's reality and the practices of organisations within the framework of social dialogue.
The role of the EZA as a space for promoting a Social and Workers' Europe, contributing to the creation of a society of the common good, was also mentioned.
1st Session
The theme of this session was "Labour Trends in the European Union" and the speakers were Mariana Trigo Pereira, an associate expert at the ILO - International Labour Organisation, and Isabel Roque, a researcher at the CES - Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra.
The first speaker, as well as providing information on the ILO's mission and structure, addressed the strategies for promoting decent work from the perspective of the ILO, aiming at increasing social cohesion and justice and combating poverty. Trigo Pereira focused on the need to promote the quality of work in view of the major environmental, demographic and technological changes underway.
The speaker also emphasised the need to prevent new occupational and social risks inherent in atypical forms of work, such as remote work, with the explosion of teleworking and work on digital platforms.
The importance of trade union action and worker representation in this context of precariousness and atomisation of workers was also highlighted.
For her part, researcher Isabel Roque also mentioned the increase in teleworking, precarious work, the growth of individualised, task-based and piecework and the fragmentation of workers as trends.
The speaker also focused on the irreversible trend of digitalisation and artificial intelligence, namely the need to regularise this and algorithm management, which must be transparent and participatory.
Trade unions need to overcome their limitations in order to get closer to workers, through appropriate information and training and by using the new social networks.
The debate was generalised in plenary to all the participants, with some questions being put to the speakers.
2nd Session
The afternoon session was entitled "Present and future challenges for workers' organisations in the European Union. The role and challenges of Christian Workers' Movements" The speakers of this panel were Dora Fonseca, Researcher at COLABOR - Collaborative Laboratory for Labour, Employment and Social Protection, Joseph Thouvenel, Vice-President of the EZA and leader of the CFTC and Olinda Marques, co-president of the Christian Workers' Movement of Europe (MTCE).
Dora Fonseca focused her speech on two external challenges that have a major impact on the whole world today: digitalisation and the just environmental transition.
For the speaker, answering these challenges requires strengthening public policies and worker representation. Trade unions must be involved in defining these policies, as the transition will only be fair with worker participation.
However, Dora Fonseca believes that it is necessary to strengthen trade union power, mobilise workers and converge with new social movements and new struggles.
She also pointed out that digital platforms are a new challenge for bringing workers together and organising them, and an area that require regulation throughout the EU.
Joseph Thouvenel centred his speech on the values of Europe and trade union work. He gave a critical reading of the values of freedom, democracy and equality and how they are values to be integrated into trade union work. Thouvenel pointed out that freedom can turn into a mere law of the strongest if there is no regulation and protection of the weakest. Democracy can also be seriously distorted and fail to be the government of the people if, other than voting there is no further participation and no intermediate institutions such as trade unions, and that equality requires recognising differences.
When the debate was opened up to the participants, the need to promote political and trade union literacy and the renewal of leadership in workers' organisations was mentioned.
Group work was then organised to answer a number of the questions raised and to deepen the interaction between the participants (see questions in Appendix I).
Three working groups were set up, which organised themselves and chose their own rapporteurs who, at the end of their work, presented the conclusions of each group to the plenary (see Annex II).
Friday 01 December 2023
3rd Session
This session, on the morning of 1 December, was dedicated to the theme "Communicating for workers - a historical perspective, current and future challenges" with interventions from António Brandão Guedes, member of the Executive Committee of BASE-FUT and retired senior technician at the Working Conditions Authority, Ulisses Garrido, member of the Executive Committee of the CGTP (1996-2012), Director of Training at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) from 2010 to 2018 and member of the Praxis Association, this panel also featured Diogo Cunha, researcher at COLABOR - Collaborative Laboratory for Labour, Employment and Social Protection.
This session focused in part on the relationship between trade unionism and journalism, recalling the experiences of the workers' press at the beginning of the 20th century in Portugal and contrasting them with the progressive affirmation of a communication paradigm based on the idea of manipulation and control - itself associated with a hierarchical and vertical organisation of the trade unions themselves.
The need to break with this paradigm was reaffirmed, to recover the idea of trade union journalism and, with it, the need to involve workers as the centre of information production - and not see them as mere propaganda targets. Some examples of the tools needed to do this were also presented.
Other subjects stressed were the importance of communication in increasing the political conscience of the working classes over time, the definition of social and labour strategies and proposals, the need to use new technologies and to take into account the cultural diversity of workers when approaching them and the using of communication tools.
4th Session
On the same day, in the morning, there was a session on "Leading a trade union today: challenges and difficulties" with the participation of Luis Simões, President of the Journalists' Union, and Danilo Moreira, President of the STCC - Call Centre Workers' Union.
This session emphasised the complementarity between the use of new communication tools and maintaining the centrality of personal contact and the figure of the shop steward, and the importance of the physical presence in the workplace as a fundamental means of building relationships between unions and workers.
Luis Simões also stressed the importance of negotiating employment contracts in order to mobilise workers, as well as defending the mandatory character of the existence of editorial boards at a time when private media companies are being bought up by non-transparent financial funds. Technological developments, particularly the use of artificial intelligence, could lead to major layoffs of journalists, erosion of working conditions and loss of quality of the news itself.
Danilo Moreira highlighted the specific nature of work in call centres, a profession that is not recognised as such, the high turnover of workers, the problems of precariousness and teleworking, and the high risk of losing psychological health. He advocated union action close to the workers, using more traditional tools such as leaflets or more modern ones such as WhatsApp and Facebook platforms.
From the intervention of these trade unionists, we can draw the idea that trade union leaders must be up-to-date, close to the workers and consider communication as a strategic element of action. Trade unionism is communication, whether traditional or more modern. However, it cannot do without the physical presence of union leaders and delegates!
5th Session
In the afternoon, there was a "Workshop on digital communication" led by Marina Chiari, a journalist and doctoral student in sociology at the Centre for Social Studies /FEUC, University of Coimbra. In this action, it was possible to work in a more participatory and interactive way, carrying out a critical analysis of the new communication tools and appreciating their immense possibilities for communicating with workers. In this workshop, the participants were the protagonists and had the opportunity to work in groups using various forms of animation and group dynamics.
Saturday 2 December 2023
6th Session
The morning started with a session on "Conflict Management and Collective Bargaining" organised by Professor Maria da Paz Campos Lima from the University of Copenhagen and Carlos Trindade, a trade union leader and member of the European Economic and Social Committee.
In her first speech, Maria da Paz tried to explain in a pedagogical way the essential mechanisms of the negotiating process and the importance of collective bargaining for democratic societies. She mentioned collective bargaining as a workers' right, the various players involved and the different types of negotiation, taking into account the diversity of labour relations in the EU.
Carlos Trindade, for his part, pointed out that negotiation processes are aimed at resolving the normal labour conflicts in democratic societies. He recalled the essential objectives of a negotiation, namely preparation, the negotiation stages, the alliances to be promoted and the forms of collective action – in particular the strike, as an instrument of last resort.
During the debate, the participants asked the speakers a number of questions, particularly about strikes in public sectors such as health and education, alliances to be taken into account and the position of the people who suffer from strikes in basic sectors that provide services to the population.
Closing session / Evaluation
At the beginning of this session, the participants were told that they had been sent a Certificate of Participation in the training course. This was later emphasised by the participants in their evaluation.
In this session, each participant was invited to give a viva voce evaluation of the three days of training
In their evaluation, the participants highlighted the following points:
The logistics and organisation of the course were very good;
The relationship between speakers and participants was good. The speakers were of high quality, with plenty of technical expertise and experience;
The exchange of experiences between the participants was positive;
There was a balance between panels and group work, which was highly valued.
However, some suggestions and proposals were put forward for future sessions:
More time for discussion and group work;
If possible, courses like this should comprise a field trip;
If possible, it was important that the slides presented by the speakers were translated into the working languages;
Promote recreational/cultural initiatives on the first day to enable greater interaction between participants;
Organise an evening of exchange between participants from different countries, inviting participants to bring something typical of each region/country (objects, food, drinks).
Promote input from participants for the programme of future sessions;
A suggestion was even made for a theme for the next session in Poland, "How to organise young workers working on digital platforms".
Final considerations
In its evaluation, the course organisers considered the initiative to be very positive and very important, both for them and for the Portuguese participants. The latter told us that this training was very important for increasing their leadership skills, as well as for learning more about the dynamics of workers' organisations in Portugal and in the other participating countries.
One of the big conclusions for everyone was that "leadership can also be learnt".
As an organisation, we feel that there has been a positive development compared to the previous edition of the Course. The fact that this time we decided that age would not be a determining factor in the selection of participants, favouring more the motivation and experience of each individual, seems to us to have been the right bet, given that the participants in this session showed a greater appetite for discussing the themes and were more inclined to participate in the classroom and in the working groups. The Portuguese participants' request to organise a WhatsApp group so that we could share information and content on issues related to the course's themes seems to be a good indicator.