Trade unionists’ knowledge and capacity rising at the local level - Switching to Local

ended

Vásárosnamény and its surroundings have always been one of the most disadvantaged regions in Hungary. This region is characterised by multiple disadvantaged situations: it has mostly light industry affected by the recent crisis. It has not tourism so there was no wage compensation to which tourism was entitled. In 2020, a major employer of the region - A.R.J. garment factory in the city of Vásárosnamény – closed down its plant; 530 jobs were lost, mostly low-paid, blue-collar women. They have been spread out in the region, some of them employed by local SMEs. The BDSZ – the national level union of light industry workers - would like here to create a regional base, to bring together light industry workers from SMEs, to represent their interests and help them to organise themselves. The main target of this one-year project would be to train the local trade unionists and trade union member and raise their knowledge, capacity and skills needed to represent the workers and protect their particular interests in the SMEs and microenterprises of the region. The international partnership, the Hungarian BDSZ as the coordinator organisation, the Portugues FESETE and the Turkish Öz İplik İş as beneficiary partners and the European level IndustriALL as an associate partner will contribute to the gathering good practices on the local level (territorial) unionisation and bargaining and in developing a methodology on how to transfer knowledge to the local level. All deliveries of the project - good practices, methodology, information material on change management, circular economy and collective (wage) bargaining practices) and the e-learning curricula based on them - which can attract the interest of local stakeholders and involve them in the network will be prepared in English and translated and disseminated also in Hungarian, Portuguese and Turkish.