Over 80 representatives from 40 Engineer and Scientist Organizations representing over 5 million engineers and scientists in 15 countries from every region of the world met in Copenhagen from 8 10 May to discuss the challenges and solutions technical unions face in today's fast changing world.

The Society of Danish Engineers hosted the conference with the support of other Scandinavian Professional unions. These professional unions are somewhat unique in that they combine both the traditional learned society and the union/labour relations roles. Aspects of this structure have increasing relevance for professional labour organizations around the world. The three-day conference combined lectures and interactive workshops to address Globalisation, Career and Life Long Learning, Social Responsibility and Ethics, Global Labour Market Issues, Membership Recruitment and Retention Issues and Vision for Professional Unions in the 21 ^st Century.

The conference noted that the rapidly changing global environment is pushing unions to adapt their services and structures to continue to attract and serve members. This requires both unions and individuals to be flexible and value added. Whilst collective bargaining is a major component for representational organizations the ability to support members to negotiate individual contracts is important. Also support must be given for employees to keep their skills continuously updated. Life long learning is no longer an option but a requirement. As employment modes shift unions must provide supportive services.

Globalisation:

The economy has shifted from an industrial to a service/knowledge base. New demands require continuous knowledge and competency updating. To meet these challenges Unions must adapt their services and delivery. Globalisation is being used by employers to apply pressure on collective bargaining by continuing a push for individual contracts and threats of relocation. This calls for increased cooperation between unions for information exchange and, where appropriate, assistance to members working abroad. Global unions and bi-lateral agreements are means to satisfy this.

Social Responsibility and Ethics:

The world community increasingly demands that companies be responsible in a number of ways. Some companies recognize the need for a positive image. This provides professional unions the opportunity to leverage their expertise and concern to move companies in positive directions including commitment to ethical practices when dealing with employment matters. The conference noted the UN commitment to promoting the Social Compact to encourage companies to behave ethically, but enforcement of such agreements remains an unmet goal.

Flexible Work, Stress and Burn Out:

The conference noted that pressures for increased hours and output are impacting upon professionals today. Professional unions have a role to play to protect employees. This includes negotiating appropriate work arrangements that allow employees to balance work and family responsibilities.

Brain Drain Brain Gain:

Mobility is inevitable. We encourage movement of professional employees, but we are concerned about the implications of the movement and some of the mechanisms. Particularly where such activities are used as means to suppress remuneration levels. Whereas Brain Drain is most often considered as a geographic phenomenon, technology is making it an electronic one. These issues underscore the need for union representation for all engineers and scientists worldwide. This is a topic that needs further study and follow-up.

Life Long Learning:

The conference noted that life long learning is a requirement for today's professional. The conference agreed that employers won't get serious about this until unions do and therefore unions have a leading role to play. The conference noted examples of arrangements to provide life long learning for professionals including negotiated professional development funds. Professional Unions need to be more involved in facilitating the delivery of appropriate professional development/life long learning programs for their members.

Membership Recruitment and Retention Issues:

The conference noted that today's employees are demanding more services and relevance from their unions. Young people, although politically active, are less inclined to join organizations that they feel may be outdated and non-responsive to their needs and attitudes. Recruitment is increasingly difficult, especially in areas where professionals are on individual employment contracts. The conference noted however that there have been significant successes in organizing professional employees. Where collective bargaining is possible groups can be organized more easily. When individual service contracts are the norm, unions must tailor their offering to the individual. Evidence is that people join labour unions for the labour relations function. However there is evidence that provision of a comprehensive range of services covering both employment and non-employment positively affects membership retention.

Vision for Professional Unions in the 21 ^st Century:

Members today are more critical in their evaluations of the organizations they join. Professional Unions must be relevant to the work and personal experiences of their members. We must reflect our members' reality. Members demand individualized services and participatory democracy; they also need a global presence and international cooperation.

The Web has the potential, as one tool, to address many of our issues by increasing information flow and creating involvement opportunities relevant in a fast paced world. Career competence, personal development, job hunting, salary benchmarking, online counselling and professional interest groups are all things easily deliverable via cyber channels, which are relevant, and a perceived value to the members.

The conference recognized the need to address the digital divide.

Our environment presents certain challenges. Members have increasing and more diverse demands: life-long learning/advice/counselling/voice at work/high quality information to reduce risk/make members feel good about themselves and their work. We need to push for strong positive influences and be a valued partner with the main stakeholders in our communities and companies. We need to ensure that we are highly responsive organizations that do more with less.

Conclusions:

It is a continuously changing world and, to be relevant and most effective in this fast paced world, unions must lead rather than react to the world. Networking among professional unions will be a critical component to allow our organizations to share our experiences and derive maximum benefit for members

We are in a competitive environment and therefore we must compete in an "open" market with other organizations to attract and retain members. Therefore we must continuously reinvent ourselves in ways that serve the diverse and changing needs of our members. We need to fully exploit changing technology to facilitate a participatory community at both local and global levels. To achieve effective member involvement, governance structures need to reflect our members' life situations.

Professional Unions have a role to play in public policy. We must increase our public profile so members can see our impact and value in this arena. We must form alliances and interactive support through mechanisms such as bi-lateral agreements. Participants agree that the steering committee should begin planning for a further conference to be held in four years time. The conference expressed its appreciation to the Danish Society of Engineers for hosting the Third International Conference of Engineer and Scientist Organizations.