“Journalists for Social Rights” project, 2018 edition, has come to an end

In June-November, the National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova (CNSM), the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation and the Investigative Journalism Centre implemented the 2018 edition of “Journalists for Social Rights”. For half of a year, 15 journalists have had the opportunity to receive training in the field of social rights.

The last session of this project was organized at the end of last week, and the best authors addressing various issues related to respecting social rights were awarded: Eugenia Cretu (Radio Europa Liberă) – great prize; Victoria Popa (Jurnal de Chişinău), Snejana Pâslari (Radio Moldova), Ion Sclifos (CNSM), Olga Stăvila (Radio Moldova), Georgeta Carasiucenco (Moldova.org) – first prize; Livia Lupaşcu (Moldova 1), Ludmila Podgurschii (Edit-Ocnita) and Alina Chiriac-Ivaşcu (Radio Moldova) –second prize.

Through this project, the organizers sought to strengthen the capacities of journalists to reflect social policies, labour relations and violations of workers’ rights in the Republic of Moldova. During the 7 training sessions, the participants were guided by media experts, CNSM specialists, as well as experts from the civil society, how to develop journalistic investigations in the social and economic field.

“Together with the project partners, we have found that issues related to payroll, informal economy, compensation, health and safety at work, working conditions, employers’ abuses are often neglected by the media. This project contributes to a better understanding of social rights” emphasized Oleg Budza, president of CNSM.

Veaceslav Palade, Program Coordinator at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, said that this project enjoyed interest from journalists who have produced a series of articles on social rights. “It’s the first time we have such a project and we plan to organize the second edition. Details will be communicated later,” said Veaceslav Palade.

Cornelia Cozonac, director of the Investigative Journalism Center, said that the theme of social rights is a broad one, but insufficiently addressed in media, and the project aims to stimulate journalists to actively address these themes of interest to the whole society.

Throughout the project, the participants had the opportunity to discuss with CNSM representatives about the role of the trade unions, their institutional framework, the services offered to the trade union members, the results of the activity of the trade union organizations, the negotiation, the conclusion and the execution of the collective labour agreement, the mechanisms for determining the indemnities and pensions, issues related to the protection of employees resulting from legislative changes, application of the normative framework for collective bargaining.

The themes approached within the project “Journalists for Social Rights” included: the national legal framework in the field of labour; mechanisms to ensure that employees’ rights and guarantees are respected; investigative journalism on issues of employee rights violation; changes to the Labour Code and their impact on employees; international recommendations in the field of labour relations.

Department of mass media and international relations of CNSM