TANSIRC2 - Towards a New Start of Industrial Relations in Construction in Central and East European Countries 2.0 – Social Dialogue Project

Brief description and main aims: 

The main objective of the TANSIRC 2.0 project – which stands for “Towards A New Start  of Industrial Relations in Construction in Central and East European Countries” – is to  (re)build, promote and foster industrial relations in the construction industry in the CEECs. With this project, the partners aim at creating a stronger added value for the concerned organisations in the CEECs and to build up the capacity of the trade unions and the  employers federations to enter in “negotiation” within a system of industrial relations. 

More specifically, project objectives are:  

• Reinforcing the currently still weak social dialogue in CEECs and the lack of  communication between national partners in construction industry. 
• Identifying which challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the  construction industry and how to address them. 
• Improving the image of construction sector in society and thereby attracting more  young people and women. 
• Identifying disappearing construction professions due to digitisation, together with  the new skills and competences and ways of working needed. 
• Addressing undeclared work and illegal practices in CEECs.

Why FIEC is dealing with this topic:

The choice of focusing on Eastern and Central European countries is based on an internal  assessment of the European social partners (FIEC and EFBWW) and the outcome of the  EUROFOUND representatives’ study, showing that the system of industrial relations in  CEECs have deteriorated significantly in the last decade. 

In 2018-2020, the European social partners launched a first edition of the TANSIRC  project, in collaboration with the AEIP. However, as capacity building is a long and  continuous process, FIEC and EFBWW together with AEIP committed themselves to a  long-term engagement to strengthen the capacity of the social partners of the construction  in the CEECs. 

Finally, construction industry has been heavily impacted in CEECs by COVID-19 crisis, which has created extraordinary challenges for continuous social dialogue. Therefore, it is  important to aim at creating a stronger added value for the concerned organisations in the  CEECs and to further build up their capacity to put in place a strong and healthy system of  industrial relations.