Meeting of Trade Union communication experts networks of SEE and NIS countries

On 2-3 of September in Brussels was held a meeting of a SEE and NIS communication experts networks. Meeting was organized within the framework of the Union to Union project.

At the meeting, participants were introduced to the results of the Congresses of the ITUC and ETUC, with the impact of these decisions on the communication agenda, updated priorities and recent successes.

Tim Noonan, director of the ITUC campaign and communications department, analyzed step-by-step campaign to change the system of modern slavery “kafala” in Qatar. Also among the main areas of campaigns for the coming 4 years democracy, a new social contract, just transition and fight against climate change.

Julian Scola, head of the ETUC Press and Communications Department, spoke about the information strategy of the European Trade Union Confederation in preparation for the European Parliament elections, mobilization on the streets of Brussels and the manifesto of the ETUC Congress with a demand for a fairer Europe for all workers and an action plan to achieve this goal.

One of the thematic sessions was devoted to wage campaigns. Evelyn Astor from the socio-economic department of the ITUC presented the economic data on which the sub-regional campaign of ITUC in the countries of Southeast Europe is based. Participants talked about country experiences in implementing the campaign on the media level and political lobbying.

Another topic of discussion was a group of issues on combating climate change, a fair transition to environmentally friendly production and jobs etc. Participants discussed the relevance of the topic in the region, the difficulty of communicating the relevance of the topic to trade union activists, members and the general public, the difficulties of translating slogans into local languages ​​and the role of trade unions in general civil processes in this area.

On the second day, the participants got acquainted with the information resource equaltimes: information policy, the process of working on articles and their selection; and discussed the potential coverage of topics and stories from countries in the region through this resource.

During the round table, there was an exchange of successes and difficulties in implementing union campaigns over the past year in both regions. Among the common challenges are individualization of participation of union members in campaigns (both online and traditional), media coverage of campaigns, and the need to segment the audience on social networks.

As a result of discussions on improving the efficiency of interaction within the network, as well as with international trade centers, the following points and topics for further work were identified:
- obtaining information on technological changes in trade unions, using CRM systems and applications, using technologies in information work based on the example of trade union centers from EU countries.
- creating a database of documents / presentations from meetings of other expert networks for using them as the basis of thematic campaigns, using documents of the European Trade Union Institute for the same purposes.
- providing brief information about the main changes and achievements by network members before the next meeting.
- localization of materials from international organizations for the region (in terms of language and visualization tools).
- Updating information on ITUC campaigns.

Julian ETUC for PERC communication meeting