Workshop for union activists in Armenia

Hamlet Danielyan, Chairman of the IWUA, opened the workshop by informing the participants that the youth meeting is being held for the fourth time, and it is very important to make this event a tradition as the young unionists need to get acquainted with positive union experience from other countries.

Vadim Borisov, regional representative of IndustriALL Global Union in Moscow, told participants about the creation, history and structure of IndustriALL, as well as about its main activities, including the youth training as the unionists get older all over the world.

Young chairmen, deputy chairmen, members of union committees and new members of local unions of Armenian enterprises attended the workshop. Eduard Vokhmin, trade union trainer, facilitated the workshop. 

The participants spoke about the activities and problems of their local unions and outlined the issues of their interest:  how to attract new members to the union, how to make the trade union work more efficient, how to avoid intervention of directors into the union work, and why western unions are so strong and powerful.

The key issue of the discussion was what the union can offer workers. It was defined that before one starts acting it is necessary to determine what exactly the workers need, what for the workers will take action.

During the workshop the participants worked in small groups and reviewed several cases, discussing what they were ready to do and actually did to achieve the necessary results. One of the examples was the action of protest, 15-kilometer procession, organized by Nairit Plant JSC workers at the beginning of July demanding the Government to eliminate the multi-month wage arrears.

The workshop participants defined the term "representation" as coordination of workers' interests with the employer, and discussed its difference from the protection of workers’ rights when a union insists on legal compliance. It was emphasized that it is necessary to think of people’s interests, and not just of their rights.

While working in small groups, the participants learnt to identify workers' interests and to develop tools to promote these interests in order to influence the employer. They also shared their experience. For instance, due to the financial problems of an enterprise the employer decided to dismiss two out of three employees of the department. However, the employees suggested the employer to reduce their salaries for a period of three months to pass through the difficult period, and thus kept all three workplaces.

At the end of the workshop several models were discussed to satisfy the consumer interests of the workers who wish to benefit from joining a union, such as trade union discount cards that increase loyalty to unions, different types of insurance, including medical, pension and occupational incident insurance, microloans, and a few solutions to solve workers’ housing issues.