Description
Project aimed at rising the benefits of social dialogue among Polish stakeholder in cupper industry and putting emphasis on the importance of the coordinated actions for better industrial relations. The project aimed at enhancing tripartite social dialogue through building the capacity of social partners, strengthening the trust among partners and establishing communication network. In addition to this, the project transferred Norwegian good practice of bringing together workers, employers and government representatives to Poland.
The project focused on the following objectives:
- Enhance tripartite social dialogue and cooperation in Poland by transferring Norwegian best-practices
- Build the capacity of social partners to get involved in tripartite social dialogue which will result in better industrial relations and economic prosperity
- Set up structures for social dialogue and establish network of social partners who will sign collective bargaining agreements for cooperation
- Incorporate Norwegian best practices in national-level workshops and training in Poland and raise the awareness of social partners
- Establish higher level of trust among social partners including government which will result in better, tailor-made national, local policies
- Establish new committees for decent work topics using new platform for tripartite social dialogue.
Summary of project results
Poland experiences different difficulties regarding tripartite social dialogue – for instance lack of information-sharing, negotiation, joint decision-making among Polish social partners. Social dialogue can resolve important economic and social problems and help both government and private sector understand each other better. This will result in better and more effective government policies and coordination among social partner. The project aims at using Norway’s strong tradition of tripartite social dialogue and transfer Norwegian good experience of bringing together workers, employers and government representatives to Polish stakeholders. The project seeks to establish the understanding that there is a common interest in the well-being of enterprises, and of the workers in the labour market and through social dialogue the progress can be achieved.
The project successfully involved 50 institutions in bipartite consultations, and 40 institutions in tripartite consultations, and the number of people trained through the trainings and workshops were 70 people from 25 institutions. The project allowed the project promoter and the participants to learn about the principles of the functioning social dialogue, trade unions and supervision over working conditions in Norway, and the project inspired the project promoter to work on the development of the Collective Labour Agreement for employees of the copper industry in the companies of the KGHM capital group.
The project focuses on the following activities:
- Kick of meeting of social partners in Poland - 30 participants, 1 day.
- National Workshop in Poland - for the local, regional and national level tripartite dialogue - 30 participants.
- Research and analysis - Preparation of the Report “Improving social dialogue and cooperation in Poland”.
- Creation online platform for the project
- Round table - involving local, regional, country level social partners – 40 participants.
- Training in Poland. Transfer of Norwegian social partners experiences and best-practices to - 40 participants.
- Final conference - presenting the results of the project, the guidelines for improving social dialogue. 60 participants.
- Communication, publicity and awareness-raising campaign.
The project contributed directly to the achievement of the following outcomes:
- Stronger tripartite cooperation and involvement of stakeholder institutions at national level or regional level, by having their kick-off meeting, workshop, round-table, training and final conference
- Higher level of trust between cooperating social partner entities – the project promoted the trust between social partners, because they exchanged ideas on better social dialogue in Poland. The project also facilitated the learning of Norwegian best practices
The workshops and meetings had good attendance, where participants in the project meetings gave positive feedback after. In a series of discussions, both trade unionists, employers’ representatives, local government officials and editors of local and national media had the opportunity to exchange experience, opinions and knowledge. This improves the formal social dialogue, but also the informal relations between the different parties. The meetings were also attended by the Chairman of Social Dialogue Council at the national level.
Through close informal collaboration with the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions , the project promoters got valuable insights into the Norwegian labour market, social dialogue and the conditions of supervising over work safety, and the principles of creating collective agreements.