Communication for labour rights meeting

The PERC, with support of the ACTRAV, has organised a meeting of communication officers from NIS affiliated and partner organisations in Moscow, 14-15 February.

The meeting aimed to promote Equal Times platform in Russian speaking community and also to consolidate Play Fair– Russia work.

Sergeus Glovackas, seniour ACTRAV specialist, welcomed the seminar and presented the ILO work in the region and called the participants to activate communication work as the awareness about trade unions and workers’ rights in the region is still rather low.

The PERC work was introduced by Anton Leppik. The PERC has been building network of Russian speaking trade union communication officers in the region of New Independent States (former USSR). In 2011 two sessions were organized, in June in Moscow and in November in Brussels. In December 2012 the ITC in Turin, in cooperation with the PERC, run a communication skills building training for young trade unionists. The present seminar is supposed to further boost the cooperation between trade union officers.

Tamara Gauzi introduced the Equal Times website and its action platform, which is currently mobilises workers all-around the world to fight for the workers’ rights in Qatar, which builds its football World Cup in 2022 preparation on exploitation and abuses.

The participants shared experiences of different trade union portals, agreeing to actively reinforce each other resources. They also brainstormed ideas to promote ET in the region and how to reinforce national campaigns with global means.

During the second day, experiences of Play Fair campaign were presented by Kristin Blom, ITUC campaign officer. Vasil Andreev of the the Ukrainian Construction workers union presented the achievements of its campaign for workers rights during the preparation of the Euro Cup in Ukraine and Poland. Boris Soshenko of the Russian Construction workers union informed about the lessons learned from Sochi Olympics construction project and the preparatory work that the unions undertook to initiate workers’ rights campaign in a view of the World Cup of 2018 in Russia.

Anna Bolsheva, a trade union researcher, presented the mapping paper that provides information about Sochi 2014 Games preparation and related risks and opportunities for unions. The participants brainstormed several ideas how to use that information to reinforce current trade union work - on organising, health and safety, against agency labour.