PROJECT INFORMATION The harbour school in Costanza
- Title of the project: The harbour school in Costanza
- Focus: create new educational programs aiming to implement the new working methods of trade-union organizations
- Stated year: 26th of March 1997
- Partners: National Federation of Harbour Trade-unions in Costanza and Genral workers union in Denmark (SiD)
- Funding: PHARE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Overall objective:
The Harbour School takes care to create educational programs aiming to implement the new working methods of trade-union organizations in agreement with Romanian legislation and international practice. The school also intends to realize professional reconversion mainly for harbour unemployed people, but also other employed categories of workers, as a solution for the new evaluated technologies implied in the technological development of harbours. Special focus is on a large domain, including some additional subjects matters, which will assure a comprehensive of the student, offering the possibility to be integrated with efficiency in a useful job. In addition, the Harbour School promotes a new teaching method, which is more flexible and shifts the accent from collection of information to encouraging creative and independent thinking.
Immediate objective:
- The aim of this project is to develop courses in different professional branches specific to the harbour activity. For example, courses aim to develop specific harbour mechanical content such as winch operator, foreman, fork lift operator, tractor drivers, mobile crane drivers, quay crane operators, portal crane operators. There are also courses to prepare workers in jobs referring specifically to commercial harbour such as commercial workers, berth operators, tallyman, ship agent, stevedore. Other courses have more harbour maritime content related to either deck jobs (sailors, motor boat drivers, chief of the crew, deck officer for harbour ships, captain for river ships and harbour technical ships) or engine jobs (engine operator, second hand of mechanical engineer, mechanical engineer and chief mechanical engineer for harbour ships). In addition, this project seeks to organize training and retraining of the shop stewards. This training is focus on democratic organization of the trade-unions; negotiation techniques for the Collective Labour Contract; labour legislation; general norms for labour protection; connections, contacts with mass-media and international relations.
Results
- Organization of courses based on a system of active and participative training and flexibility of teaching.
- Analysis of the labour in the harbour in order to identify the references and handbooks necessary for courses.
- Creation of a base of school supplies: handbooks, computers, maps, CD´s, video-cassettes, library for teacher and students, sketches, schemes, diagrams and slides.
- Two courses qualifying fork lift operators
- A pilot course for shop stewards with the purpose of learning negotiating technology referring to collective working contracts.
- A pilot course for multi-qualification of mechanical dockers comprising two specific professions and two complementary professions such as using a calculator and how to perform first aid.