Trade Unions in Transformation
- FREE
- English
- Interdisciplinaire
- avec option de mise à niveau du certificat
What is the course about?
Welcome to our FREE online course Trade Unions in Transformation!
This is an online course discussing how trade unions are transforming and using their agency and power resources in the changing world of work. It demonstrates how workers and their organisations can mobilise their Power Resources to improve working and living conditions.
This course is developed by an international team of trade unionists, labour researchers, and academics, coordinated by the Global Trade Union programme, the Trade Union Competence Centre (TUCC) at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in partnership with the Global Labour University.
The course is designed for learning together and for discussing strategies and ideas that identify and use power resources in our trade unions and workers’ organisations. It brings together people from around the world and a variety of experiences in the labour movement.
This course will run in an interactive and participatory phase for three weeks from 31 March to 17 April 2020. Afterwards, the course will be available for groups and individuals to work on their own and at their own pace.
What will I learn?
In this course, you will learn how unions can transform. Transformation refers to fundamental changes in how an organization operates so that it can cope with shifts in its environment. For trade unions, environments have changed dramatically. We have witnessed how financial markets and Transnational Corporations have come to dominate the world’s economy. In their search for profits, the burden is placed on the backs of society, the environment and workers. While the rich get richer, workers are forced into precarious, ultra-flexible and informal work. You will learn how trade unions can use their structural, associational, institutional and societal power to meet new challenges in the world of work such as climate change and digitalisation.
What do I need to know?
The course requires a working level of English. Theoretical concepts are explained in an accessible and well-illustrated way, so it is also possible to participate in the course using skills and knowledge acquired outside formal education. The mix of video lectures, readings, exercises and interaction with other course participants will enable you to engage easily in the debates.
Course workload
The estimated workload is 5-6 hours per week if you read also the key reading for each unit. You can complete this course with the support of an online tutor during the three weeks starting on 31 March 2020. You can also study at your own pace, any time you want.
Certificates and Scholarships
You can enrol and complete this course for FREE and get a Certificate of Participation if you wish so.
You can obtain a Certificate of Participation at any time after completing the course. This means watching all the videos and responding to the quiz questions of each video. The Certificate of Participation costs 29€. If you are from a non-OECD country or a trade unionist from an OECD country, you can apply for a scholarship, by sending an email to online@global-labour-university indicating your organisation and the country you are from.
How to use the course materials?
You can organise a local workshop on the topics of the course combining the course materials with local experts from trade unions, labour research institutes and universities.
If you work for a university, trade union or any other labour-related institution you are welcome to integrate the course material into your education and training programmes. All video lectures and interviews, readings, online resources, and exercises can be downloaded separately and used for free.
Course Structure
The course consists of three chapters. Each uses examples from case studies to present different aspects of the power resources approach and providing examples of case studies. The chapters are divided into units, each unit has a video lecture, followed by a quiz section and supplemented by additional material and a space for discussions and questions.
Chapter 1: Trade Unions in Transformation: Introducing the Power Resources Approach
This chapter introduces you to our project: “Trade Unions in Transformation.” It is a project about how trade unions can innovate by using their power resources and developing their capabilities. We want to take you on a trip to discover the dimensions of power in the hands of workers and their unions. And show how unions have been able to advance workers interest in contexts of changing economic and political condition. You will learn about what we mean by power resources.
Chapter 2: Explaining the Varieties of Power Resources: Associational, Structural, Institutional and Societal Power
This chapter introduces you to essential varieties of power resources. Associational Power, Structural Power, Institutional Power and Societal Power. Building associational power is the relationship between leadership and participation within unions. Structural Power is about labour market and workplace bargaining power, and power to disrupt. Institutional Power is securing and stabilising influence through institutional set-ups. Finally, Societal Power is the Power beyond the workplace: agenda-setting, alliances, coalitions.
Chapter 3: Power Resources in Practice: Capabilities, Gender and Context
This chapter is about developing capabilities to recognize and use power resources. And it focusses on power resources from a gender perspective and power resources in a global and regional context. New and practical ways for meaningful participation of union members, specific measures for empowering women, attracting new members and increasing international solidarity are explored.
Course team
Dr. Michael Fichter (Senior Lecturer, Global Labour University, Germany)
Mirko Herberg (Coordinator, Global Trade Union Programme, FES, Germany)
Shane Choshane (Project Manager at FES Trade Union Competence Centre, South Africa )
Bastian Schulz ( Director, FES Trade Union Competence Centre, South Africa)
Bruno Dobrusin (Trade Union Activist)
Warren McGregor (GLU-Wits Programme Coordinator)
Dr Melisa Serrano (Professor, School of Labour and Industrial Relations, University of the Philippines)
Marggie Peters (Trade Union Activist)
Jacob Omolo (Senior Lecture, Department of Applied Economics, Kenyatta University, Kenya)
Sarah Hinz (Researcher, Department of Labour, Industrial and Economic Sociology, University of Jena (Germany)
Arbind Singh (Founder of National Association of Street Vendors of India)
Aelim Yun, PhD. (Research Fellow, Centre for Labour & Welfare Law, Seoul National University, South Korea)
Didice Godinho Delgado ( Social Worker and former trade unionist, CUT, Brazil)
Dr. Edlira Xhafa (Coordinator of the Global Labour University Online Academy)
Course instructors (in order of appearance)
Mirko Herberg (Coordinator, Global Trade Union Programme, FES, Germany)
Dr Melisa Serrano (Professor, School of Labour and Industrial Relations, University of the Philippines)
Jacob Omolo (Senior Lecture, Department of Applied Economics, Kenyatta University, Kenya)
Sarah Hinz (Researcher, Department of Labour, Industrial and Economic Sociology, University of Jena (Germany)
Arbind Singh (Founder of National Association of Street Vendors of India)
Aelim Yun, PhD. (Research Fellow, Centre for Labour & Welfare Law, Seoul National University, South Korea)
Marggie Peters (Trade Union Activist)
Didice Godinho Delgado ( Social Worker and former trade unionist, CUT, Brazil)
Warren McGregor (GLU-Wits Programme Coordinator)
Bruno Dobrusin (Trade Union Activist)
Shane Choshane (Online tutor)
Course instructors
Melisa Serrano
School of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of the Philippines
I teach courses on theories in industiral relations, labour and the economy, industrial relations and national development, and human resource development at the national level. My research involves the following topics: non-standard and precarious employment in ASEAN and East Asia; collective representation and collective action among workers in informal employment; union renewal; the informal economy; industrial relations in micro and small enterprises; trade unions and social movements; comparative industrial relations; wages and productivity in the Philippines; and 'alternatives' to capitalism. I engage with trade unions and other worker organisations in the Philippines and in other countries in terms of collaborative research, training and education, program development and evaluation, and other forms of technical support.
Jacob Omolo
Labour Economist
Sarah Hinz
Sarah Hinz is a German based sociologist. Her research interests focus on employment relations in Germany and Russia, precarious work as well as labour and social policy. She was a research assistant at the Institute of Sociology at University of Jena until 2018. Since then she is a doctoral candidate and holds a scholarship of the German Hans Böckler Foundation.
Arbind Singh
An activist and a social entrepreneur, he has been empowering informal workers by getting new laws ,polices and programs and by securing their access to markets, financial services and technology.. He played a pioneer role in getting a Street Vendors Act in India which empowers millions of street vendors against eviction and harrassment .He was elected as Ashoka and Eisenhower Fellow in 2007. He was awarded the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 by the Schwab Foundation at World Economic ForumIn 2012, Skoll Foundation awarded him with Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He heads Nidan and is also the National Coordinator of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) and Co-Chairperson of Self Workers Global ,an International federation of Street Vendors based out of Madrid . He is also the Chairman of All India Unorganized Workers Congress . He holds a Bachelor and Master’s degree in Sociology from the Delhi University .
Aelim Yun
Research Officer, Institute of Workers’ Rights of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Legal Centre
Senior Researcher, Law Research Institute at the Seoul National University School of Law
Advisory Committee Member, National Human Rights Commission of Korea
Public Interest Commissioner, Seoul Regional Labour Relations Commission
Steering Committee Member, Labour Law Research Network
Her recent publication includes ‘Reconstructing Labour Law Actors beyond Employment’ (International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 34[4]) and Trade Unions in Transformation: Safety for the Public, Rights for the Driver (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2020).
Edlira Xhafa
Edlira Xhafa is the Executive Director of the Online Academy of the Global Labour University. She has a master's degree in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the Global Labour University (Germany) and holds a PhD in Labour Studies from the University of Milan, Italy. Since 2000, she has been engaged with national trade unions in her home country Albania, as well as in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. She has also worked for, and collaborated with Education International, Public Services International, Building and Wood Workers' International, International Labour Organisation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and others.
Marggie Peters Muhika
Marggie Peters Muhika is an international development practitioner with experience working across diverse socio-political contexts in Africa. She specializes in labor rights, international trade, democracy, and governance.
She is currently the Deputy Director for Africa at the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) where she leads program strategy and design, policy and legislative analysis, managing of partners/stakeholder relationships, fundraising, grants management and diplomatic outreach.
Before her current role, Marggie was the Country Director for East and Horn of Africa at the Solidarity Center, where she led work in three of the most complex countries in the region - Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.
Additionally, she previously worked for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Kenya and later at the FES Trade Union Competence Center (FES TUCC) for Sub-Saharan Africa based in South Africa.
She is a master in management of development graduate from the International Training Center of the ILO (ITCILO) in Turin, Italy and is currently pursuing an M.Sc. in Global Public Policy at the SOAS, University of London.
Didice Godinho Delgado
I am a Brazilian social worker; former trade union leader; and first coordinator of the National CUT (Unified Worker's Central) Committee of Working Women (1987-1993). I work freelance, consulting in trade union education and gender issues, and live in Berlin.
Warren McGregor
I have an MA in Industrial Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand. My research interests include Labour History, Labour Ideologies and Strategic Application, African Political Sociology, Anarchism/Syndicalism and Worker Organisation. I have been a GLU South Africa programme coordinator since 2013. My activism is centred on popular class (the working class and poor) political education with trade unions and social movements and their communities.
Bruno Dobrusin
Currently based in Canada, he worked for seven years at the Argentine Workers Confederation (CTA). He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and is a GLU alumni from the Masters in Globalisation and Labour at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India.
Shane Choshane
Shane Choshane is the Project Manager at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Trade Union Competence Centre (FES TUCC). He has experience in the trade union movement having worked for the National Union of Mineworkers. He holds a Master’s degree in Globalisation and Labour Policies, a programme of Global Labour University (GLU).
Revue des cours sélectionnés
Note globale 4.9 (10 d'étudiants)
The Four power resources
Honestly the four power resources have been a value additional to my knowledge and I look forward to strength the capabilities of our union through the usage of these power resources. It is a great initiative to have this online course and I hope more trade unions can have access to such trainings.
This course give me knowledge and undestanding how to lead the wokers and how diffed employer
The method instructor there use to lecture us is clear and understandable. Thanks for educating us.
I understand the concept of TU
I like the lectures. It was described in a very simple way, easy to undestand, and step by step.
the explanation of each chapter is very clear and direct .. I fully undesrtand and learn a lot
Associational power, Institutional power, Structural power
Transformation in trade unions and leadership skills
