On 9 and 10 April 2013, about 25 trade unionists attended the ETF seminar on how to organise managerial and professional staff (M&PS) in the transport sector. This is also one the core questions of the EU-funded project called “TRAN-MAPS” that aims to concretise the strategies transport trade unions can use when attracting M&PS to join the union. This seminar is the first activity of the project that is organised in cooperation with EUROCADRES and ETF affiliates HK Trafik & Jernbane and Oficiaismar.
The seminar offered the opportunity to present the conclusions of the MASTER study, executed in 2007-2008 by the ETF with support from the European Union and containing statistical and qualitative data on M&PS in the transport sector. The participants also received training on European Sectoral Social Dialogue and a debate was held on what kind of M&PS related issues could be included in the social dialogue agenda. The seminar was concluded with a debate on what impact the demand of increasing the sustainability of the sector has on M&PS and the role they can play in improving the sustainability performance of transport companies.
In the coming months, two workshops will take place to further discuss the different topics related to organising M&PS. Among others, they will deal with young graduates, gender balance, criminalisation, responsible European management and working time and workload of M&PS. The first workshop is scheduled for 18 and 19 June 2013 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The second workshop will be organised in Lisbon, Portugal, on 9 and 10 September 2013. The project will be concluded with a conference that will present the outcome of the different discussions. It will feed into the project products, namely guidelines on how to unionise M&PS.