State Level Training Programme for Trade Union State Organizers on Organizing in MNCs, SEZs / EPZs and Informal Economy Sectors in Tamil Nadu

Under the ILO - ACTRAV / Norway Project “Trade Unions for Social Justice”, the trade unions in Tamil Nadu have taken the campaign activities on promotion of ratification of ILO core Conventions from state to zone, zone to districts and to the grass roots, through the trade union networks that are established and functional at all levels.

Henceforth the JAF unions in Tamil Nadu would like to concretely address workers issues in MNCs, SEZs, Informal Economy and such other sectors where there is a huge workforce employed; however unionization in some of these sectors is very low or not in existence at all! The JAF unions in Tamil Nadu decided that the CLS campaign activities should include and reach to large number of workers in MNCs, SEZs & Informal Economy sectors also. The JAF also expressed that there is an urgent need to address capacity building of the trade unions and their cadres, to be able to effectively and efficiently undertake activities in MNCs, SEZs and also in the informal economy through organizing.

In this background, the project with JAF has planned to organize a “Two Day State Level Training Programme for the Trade Union State Organizers on Organizing” on 17th & 18th June 2013 at Mamallapuram, Kancheepuram. Cadres from the six JAF National Unions AITUC, BMS, CITU, HMS, INTUC & LPF would be invited to this training, and will be trained on various organizing techniques in the areas of informal economy, MNCs & SEZs.

Also, the project will take the opportunity to formally handover the Tamil Nadu ILO/ACTRAV Norway Project activities to the TU JAF during this training programme through an exit strategy, as the project office will be moving to Delhi from the 1 of July 2013, and the JAF unions will directly carry out the Tamil Nadu activities with technical support and assistance from the Project based in Delhi.

The training programme will be facilitated by the Senior Specialist on Workers Activities, ILO - Delhi, the National Programme Manager, ILO - Chennai and an external consultant from Ambedkar Institute, Mumbai.