Freedom of association and collective bargaining

Promoting Organizing, Collective Bargaining and Decent Work in Garment Industry

The training programme will provide an opportunity for the participants to learn and share experiences on management policies, organizing & collective bargaining strategies of the unions. Within this context, the participants will also learn about factors affecting wages, productivity and ILO policies for promoting Decent Work for all workers.

Background

This two day residential training workshop is aimed at contributing towards organizational and technical capacities of the trade unions for promoting decent work in garments and other small medium enterprises (SMEs) through organizing and collective bargaining. The training programme will provide an opportunity for the participants to learn and share experiences on management policies, organizing & collective bargaining strategies of the unions. Within this context, the participants will also learn about factors affecting wages, productivity and ILO policies for promoting Decent Work for all workers.

Indonesian economy has been growing steadily in recent years and at the same time social and income inequalities have been rising. Wage employment is growing but majority of the workers are on minimum wages which too many employers do not respect. Unions are concerned that the share of workers in the growing prosperity of the country is low and declining. Improved respect for FoA and Collective bargaining rights will go a long way in ensuring that workers get a real share in the growth their labour helps to produce. At the same time, there is a need to build capacities for better collective bargaining.

The emerging economic environment, changes in the labour markets and irregular employment relationships requires unions to develop new skills for organizing, collective bargaining and representing workers interests – in particular skills to deal with private sector employers in an increasingly competitive market economy where precarious employment dominates. As part of leadership building, unions need to promote negotiating and collective bargaining skills among women and youth activists so that they help workers to get a real share in the gains from growth. As matters stand today, most workers in Indonesia find it hard to move beyond minimum wages in so far as the remuneration for work is concerned. This workshop is part of the ILO efforts for capacity building of unions for effective collective bargaining.

This training workshop will provide young trade union representatives not only with an opportunity to deepen their understanding on the impact of globalization (& global economic crisis) on the world of work but also learn specifically about collective bargaining techniques, understand and utilize companies financial information for formulating charter of demands and negotiate wages, including productivity agreements – so that workers improve their share in the wealth they help to create and get decent working conditions.

Objectives

The Training Programme will contribute towards:
  • Strengthening of unions’ leadership through developing technical and organizational capacities of the young leaders in the area of organizing & collective bargaining, and
  • Strengthen unions’ abilities to represent member’s interests more effectively and promote decent work.

Workshop Contents

The workshop will comprise of the following sections:
  1. Globalization, Decent Work and the labour movement: Session to focus on globalisation, changes in the world of work, impact on labour relations, ILO Decent Work response and way forward for the trade union movement.
  2. Review of Country & Trade Union Situation: Each invited trade union is expected to present a brief report on the state of trade unions, issues in regard to organizing, wages and collective bargaining and key challenges facing the unions in Indonesian context.
  3. Enabling conditions and strategies for promoting Freedom of Association, Organizing & Collective bargaining: The session will focus on – organizing strategies, organizing in the global supply chains, FoA protocol of IndustriAll – focus will also be on how to create enabling conditions at policy/law level for organizing and bargaining.
  4. Strategies & Skills for collective bargaining