Fighting precarious work and wages, PERC Women’s Network sub regional meeting in the Balkans,29 June-1-st July 2011

The Women’s Committee of the PERC together with the ILO/ACTRAV organized a sub-regional seminar in Sofia from 29 June to 1 July 2011 on “ Decent employment, decent work, decent working conditions and wages in the Balkans”.

The seminar is part of the PERC Women’s Committee action program for this year and was mean to strengthen the national level trade union women’s committees in the Balkan region and their capacity to produce equality plans on national level to influence state institutions, government policies and trade union policies. The seminar gathered around 40 participants from eight Balkan countries and members of the host organization CITUB. The main issued discussed during the seminar were women and precarious work, the challenges trade unions are facing on finding the proper strategy for fighting vulnerable jobs and precarious work; the situation of workers under the crisis conditions in the Balkans, the crisis and its gender dimension. The second part of the seminar was dedicated to the challenges linked with the EU accession of the Balkan countries to the EU and gender dimension of the accession process. Lively debated took place during the last panel on trade policies and precarious work, and the role of the women’s network. The women’s network in the Balkans decided to elaborate a regional strategy and plan of action for future cooperation in the region, plan which will be presented at the next PERC Women’s School to take place in Vilnius from 26 to 28 October.