@article{2025:kostov:bulgaria_,
title = {Bulgaria: empowering base-level trade union leaders to ensure growth in membership numbers},
year = {2025},
note = {This article outlines the empowerment of base-level trade union
leaders in the agricultural sector in Bulgaria as an innovative
strategy towards attracting new members and retaining existing ones.
The approach has been adopted by the Federation of Independent Trade
Unions in Agriculture (FNSZ) with the aim of creating proactive union
structures that not only defend workers’ interests but also engage
in meaningful initiatives defined by the members themselves.
Empowering workers to interact and to deal with such topics positions
unions at the heart of civil society. Thus organising can be initiated
through base-level structures and a bottom-up organising strategy can
complement the top-down strategy already applied within FNSZ. The
empowerment of members has already contributed to some positive
outcomes and is believed to be a major weapon against a spreading
individualist workplace culture and stagnating membership figures over
the last decade. Information for this article has been gathered
through desk research and an in-depth interview with the chair of
FNSZ.},
journal = {SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe},
pages = {203--214},
author = {Kostov, Lyuboslav and Makelova, Rositsa},
volume = {28},
number = {2}
}