News

UNI Europa launched the first project on Co-operatives in the commerce sector: exploring and promoting social dialogue in Europe

On 26 January 2012, UNI Europa launched the EU funded project entitled “First project on Co-operatives in the commerce sector: exploring and promoting social dialogue in Europe. The project will be managed by the Italian trade union organisation UILTuCS in partnership with the other two Italian affiliated organisations FISCASCAT CISL and FILCAMS CGIL. It will last twelve months and is aimed at exploring industrial relations and social dialogue in consumer cooperatives in several European countries, In particular, the project will facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices involving trade unions in Co-ps. UNI Europa will count on the expertise of a well-known research institute, DIESIS, specialized in research and development of the social economy, and in particular cooperatives, social enterprises and worker-owned enterprises, in Europe and in the world. With a view to investigate unions relations, number of employees and existing collective agreements, it is foreseen the realization of a survey, which will be conducted by DIESIS under the supervision of UNI Europa and a Steering Committee composed of affiliated organizations from 6 countries across Europe. A final conference, to be held in Rome the month of September, will draw conclusions of the project and will present the outcomes of the survey. This project comes from a strong will of UNI Europa to understand and examine the situation of consumers’ cooperatives in Europe, a sector which employs 20 million people in Europe in the commerce sector, mainly in small towns, which offers good working conditions and has a relatively high level of unionization both in Western and Eastern European countries.