The experience of BNS from Romania, useful for making Moldovan trade unions’ activities more efficient

“Both the scale of the whole country and the level of certain areas have accumulated multiple challenges in dealing which involved trade unions. In order not to admit certain mistakes in the process of solving them, the experience of our colleagues from abroad is important for us, especially from Romania, the neighbouring country,” said the president of CNSM, Oleg Budza, at the beginning of the workshop, held today, November 24, at the Labour Institute of CNSM, with the participation of the President of the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS) from Romania, Dumitru Costin, Vice-President of the BNS, Gheorghe Balaceanu, and Florin Bica, Vice-President of the BNS.

Furthermore, noted Oleg Budza, lately, there have been many changes to the legislation of the neighbouring country that have not brought benefits to employees, many employees’ rights have been cancelled, which were hardly earned by trade unions, for a long time. At the same time, we want to know in more details some aspects of the EU recommendations and directives, because our country has signed the Association Agreement with the EU, which contains many standards on OSH and labour law.

Tackling the theme of social dialogue, the president of the BNS, Dumitru Costin, explained that many people speak about this phenomenon, but they understand very little. In his view, social dialogue is a process in which power is temporarily held by the political class and must be shared with social partners: employers’ organizations and trade unions. If the political leaders understand this, the president of the BNS has stated, and they assumes the involvement of the capital and the labour force, represented by trade unions, in the major decisions taken in the country, in the reforms they assume, then the success is guaranteed.

Dumitru Costin stipulated that in order to ensure maximum protection of trade union members, from a socio-economic point of view, it is necessary to identify a trade union organization format, where the employee is placed at the centre of the trade union activity: with his problems and needs, with his expectations, but at the same time with his involvement.

Another important aspect of the workshop was the BNS experience for recruiting in trade unions. In this context, Gheorghe Balaceanu pointed out that “the most important component of the trade union activity is recruitment, especially when people are going abroad looking for a better paid job. In order to convince people to join the trade union, it is extremely important to know what their needs are, to try to find tools to solve people’s problems. Or, without meeting the requirements, their needs, we can no longer recruit someone. A trade union member must be aware of his membership in the trade union, because it defends his rights. “In particular, Gheorghe Balaceanu stressed, “we must concentrate on the recruitment of young people. Most young people do not know what trade unions are doing. We need to have a clear message for this category of citizens that trade union protects their labour rights, their interests in labour relationships.”

Department of mass media and international relations