On May 12th, 2010 nineteen participants participated in a training course on organizing skills which was held in DWRC’s headquarter in Gaza, representing six labor unions: the Independent Labor Committees’ Union, the General Union for Electricity Sector Workers in Palestine, the Union of Petrochemical Workers, the Public Services Union, the Health Services Employees’ Union and the Metal Workers’ Trade union.
The three day training course, which was funded by FOS – Socialist Solidarity, included topics on organizing skills, the stages that union organizing passed through internationally and locally, differences between labor unions and professional unions, clarifying the conditions and criteria for effective trade union work, familiarizing participants with the legal aspects of organizing in unions, provisions and procedures for forming trade unions and legislations regarding trade unions.
The course included practical training to enable participants to better understand the mechanisms for forming a union and to improve their skills in elaborating the objectives and internal statute of a union. In addition, they were able to acquire new skills in how to develop a strategy and tactics of trade union work and the process of collective bargaining.
Muhammad Abu Mahady from DWRC-Gaza said that this training course aims at empowering independent democratic union work, to ensure that the Palestinian Union movement has cadres capable to represent workers’ interests and to defend it, especially since the situation of trade union has been deteriorating and freedoms and rights are violated, due to policies of socio-economic marginalization that Palestinian workers are exposed to.