Description
The main objective of the project is to strengthen social dialogue at the regional level in Poland. This general objective will be achieved by a series of detailed objectives, such as recruitment of a group of six trainers, experienced in the work with social partners in the field of social dialogue best practices. The recruitment will be carried out making use of Norwegian examples and experience. In addition, a training programme for Polish trade unions members will be prepared, also based on the Norwegian experiences. This includes an improvement of competences of trade unionists in the field of social dialogue, as well as its relation to civic dialogue and its influence on the local community, taking place through a series of pilot workshops in five regions of Poland (voivodeships). Finally, the project will promote the social dialogue and its significance, organise a training programme and initiate the complex training activities in 16 voivodeships. The partner, UNIO, will be responsible for providing knowledge and experience, which will be transferred directly to Polish trainers and indirectly to hundreds of social dialogue participants.
Summary of project results
The changing context in Poland during project implementation did not facilitate the achievement of the results. The idea of OPZZ was to use the seminars to initiate discussion on how the Norwegian model of social dialogue can be adapted and introduced in the Polish environment. The participation and involvement of employers’ side was satisfactory, unfortunately the authorities did not show much interest in the topic. Even if they participated in seminars, they did not make any input to the discussion. At the same time, the project succeeded in presenting the Norwegian model of social dialogue to a wide group of social partners and to introduce different ideas for the workplace. The main beneficiaries of the project were participants of the national trainings and dissemination seminars who received basic knowledge and learned about good practices from Norway. The participants of the trainings and seminars learned how to introduce some of the best solutions into their work environment. Five trainings have been organized and 100 participants, including representatives of employees, took part in these two-day workshops. The seminars have been organized in 16 regions and in each about 30 persons participated. This amounts to about 480 participants in total, including representatives of trade unions, employers and authorities. The knowledge gained and the best practices learned was used by experts during national trainings and dissemination activities. It is also still used and spread by them in their everyday activity. The representatives of trade unions had the chance to learn a lot about social dialogue, and as representatives of workers they use it in their activity and social dialogue in the workplaces. The group of experts together with the experts from Norway produced a unique training programme, which was tested during national trainings and can be used for future trainings for social partners. The informational campaign has been prepared, aimed at improvement of the image of trade unions in wider society. The cartoon, comic and billboard campaign had very good feedback what is very important output of the project as well.
Summary of bilateral results
The cooperation between partners have been very strong from the very beginning. Norwegian partner UNIO was involved in preparation of the project and influenced its implementation. It enabled easy achievement of the project objectives. The Norwegian experts were strongly involved in the preparation of study visits, training programme, experts participated in each of 5 national trainings. Some contacts were initiated which enable further cooperation not only at the confederation level.