Labour victory in Slovenian retail sector

The International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggle is relaying this information from CEDRA, several of which we have already publicised. (here)

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Dear comrades!

We are proud and glad to inform you about everything that we achieved together with workers in the trade union TUŠ (Slovenian retail chain) after 3 years of organizing efforts.

Center for Social Research (Cedra) worked closely with the workers in the trade union Tuš, which is part of sectorial retail union SDTS (a member of UNI Global). With the support of Uni Global and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, after many collective actions, a strike declaration and 6 months of weekly negotiations, we finally achieved a democratically approved collective bargaining agreement in Tuš retail company.

This was a great success after establishing a new trade union three years ago. With co-research and by following organizing steps, we achieved representation, and with many collective actions of trade union members and shop-floor activists, we managed to realise workers’ economic and non-economic demands. Negotiations were democratic and inclusive, and in the end, everything that was negotiated was approved by the members. Such an inclusive process is not yet well established and we must work on strengthening and deepening it. Even though it is a big success and workers are happy and proud of their collective organizing and bargaining efforts, we continue our efforts to build a stronger trade union for new victories, however it is also important we build and strengthen unions in other companies and sectors as well. We are now starting a discussion of shorter working time for workers on Saturdays!

Here you can find a short media report (available in Slo. on fb sindikat Tuš). We are also finishing a longer report about our three-year struggle and collective actions. It will be shared with you and it will enable us to discuss how we can build a stronger trade union movement in the retail sector and continue to support each other.

Comradely,
Tina Podbevšek, coordinator
CEDRA