Conference of the PERC Women’s Committee, 26 November, Brussels

The Conference of the PERC Women’s Committee took place on 26 November in Brussels with the participation of around 60 women from organisations in the PERC region. The main purpose of the Conference was to discuss the work program of the PERC Women’s Committee for the period 2011-2012 : establish the priorities, stimulate PERC member unions to initiate equality activities and policy mainstreaming on the national level, role and responsibilities of the PERC Women’s Committee and its members. The Conference was opened by Sharan Burrow the ITUC General Secretary who presented the challenges women are facing during the extreme difficult economic and social conditions generated by the present crisis.

The Conference took into consideration in its debates the recommendations of the CEE and NIS Women’s Network on : intensifying the Decent Work for Decent Life Women Campaign; discussing a system of gender awareness training programs; positive action to further strengthen women’s involvement in trade union decision-making and strengthen the position of women’s structures in their unions; mainstreaming gender equality; intensify campaigning on national level for the ratification of the ILO Conventions and support for the Domestic workers ILO recommendations; work on the elimination of workplace violence. All recommendations fit in the proposed working program which include the following priorities: Decent Work for Decent Life for Women campaign; increase union activity on pay equity and work life balance; coherence in trade union gender policies and gender audits; strengthen women’s involvement in trade union decision-making; domestic workers and campaigning for the ratification of the ILO Conventions.
The future work program of the PERC Women’s Committee will be finalized with the incorporation of the recommendations received from the Network; a PERC Women’s Committee Presidium meeting is foreseen for 13-15 December to work on the documents.
After debates on the work program the Conference elected some new members for the vacant positions in the committee. Hege Hero/YS Norway was elected President; Tatyana Frolova/FNPR Russian Federation Vice-President and Natalya Levitska/KVPU committee member.
The Conference was followed by a Committee meeting to discuss how to better organize itself and how to distribute the tasks within the committee.

The documents of the conferece can be dowloaded here

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