Report from the LISC WRA Workshop, 24 and 25 June 2021

The WRA workshop was held in the International Hotel in Zagreb on 24 and 25 June 2021. The workshop was organized in line with all the epidemiological recommendations at the time. The participants, altogether 22 of them, were maintaining social distance and using protection equipment. The training for nominated participants was organized for establishing Workers’ Right Advocates in Croatia.

The WRA workshop was conducted by Ana Milićević Pezelj, the main Croatian expert, assisted by Sunčica Brnardić, the second Croatian expert and Nediljka Junaković, the moderator.
The WRA workshop started with the summary of the previous activity, the Validation workshop held on 10 June 2021 and a short review of all already finished activities. After that the information on the continuation of the Project was given to the participants also by Ana Milićević Pezelj, namely the WAC/five mini trainings for eight nominated participants on the participation of workers and new approaches to workers’ voice within companies, stress management trainings, active aging, health and safety at workplace, gender equality etc.
The summary about the finished Project activities and the information about the future ones were followed by thematic presentations and discussions.

Participants were very active in discussions about workers’ right to information, consultation and participation in decision-making process at the company level, collective bargaining, exchange of information and communication within trade union (from local union to trade union and confederation headquarters and back), law and decision-making mechanisms in the European Union, social partners’ framework agreements on the European Union level and ways of their implementation in the national framework, stress management, demographic problems and active aging policies, multicultural Europe and trade union activities related to this etc. A lot of personal experiences of the participants were discussed and also the possibilities to improve themselves and their trade union work especially using good practices from Nordic model and the recommendations from the Norwegian expert, comprised in the Guideline Manual on “Decent Work Agenda“.

At the beginning of the afternoon session of the first day of the workshop Ana Milićević Pezelj presented the draft of the curriculum for the last five trainings for the Workers’ Right Advocates, especially the purpose of education, main goals, plan of activities, expected results etc.
The second part of the first day and the second day of the WRA workshop were devoted more thoroughly to defining the curriculum for the last five trainings. Sessions were led by Nediljka Junaković, moderator and SSSH/UATUC education expert and Sunčica Brnardić, SSSH/UATUC legal expert (who will be delivering the last five trainings together with Paula Zore, psychologist).

The sessions followed a guided needs-based approach to defining the curriculum. Through a facilitated workshop, participants reported their motivation for trade union work and challenges they face in this work. In the next step, participants were engaged in jointly creating an outline for the curriculum through a World-cafe workshop. They provided answers to three questions: what knowledge they needed for performing better at trade union work, which skills (communication, cognitive, technical and social) are needed for a good shop steward and which knowledge and skills they personally want and need to further.

For the next day, the Experts summarised results and presented the suggested curriculum themes outline to the participants. Participants expressed the wish for the trainings to be based on active learning methods and be focused on soft skills – negotiations, resilience, organisation and self-organisation, and communication in general. Detailed curriculum will be developed in the next steps in cooperation with the Main Expert and Psychologist.
At the end of the second day, participants for WAC training were chosen, and all WRA participants communicated their expectations from WAC and discussed the conditions and ideas for its sustainability and effectiveness which will be taken into account while designing the final curriculum for the last five trainings.