Strengthening Organising Capacities of Trade Unions in a changing World of Work (East Africa)

The world of work continues to undergo several transformations driven by globalisation, technological changes, demographic changes and climate change. These transformations have several implications on decent work and, organising workers, which is one of the major role of the workers’ organisations. The changes were worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic which exposed the serious decent work deficits that exists in the world of work. The pandemic also placed organising of workers on the spotlight resulting in the emergence of new innovative and creative ways of organising workers in a challenging environment. Organizing and collective action remains one of the many ways in which workers’ organisations promote the four pillars of the decent work agenda namely workers’ rights, employment creation, social protection and social dialogue. This three-week training programme was therefore designed to empower workers’ organizations to take concrete actions and innovative organising strategies. It allowed collaborative learning and knowledge-sharing of relevant experience to accelerate workers’ organizations’ actions on organising workers in a changing world of work. OBJECTIVES Specifically, the training aimed at enabling participants to: • Understand and articulate the driving forces in the changing world of work and implications on trade union organising; • Review the new strategies that the trade unions were implementing and ways to strengthen the strategies; • Develop and implement organising models with particular focus on platform workers, informal economy workers and young workers; and, • Share good practices and experiences on comprehensive, efficient and innovative services to trade union organising. CONTENT The course covered three deep learning modules through synchronous and asynchronous learning modalities. These include: (i) driving forces behind the changing world of work and organising strategies; (ii) strategic organising with particular focus on platform workers, informal economy workers and young workers; (iii) management of change programme to create an organising culture. Learners spent an average of 40 learning hours to complete three (3) self-guided learning modules; three (3) live teach-ins/webinars and post a minimum of four (4) weekly online forum entries and interactions with co-learners.