Participants had the opportunity to listen presentations made by the President of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia E. Tumasyan, who spoke about the reforms made in the CTUA and noted the importance of the issues to be discussed; Senior Specialist in Workers’ Activities of ILO DWT and Country Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Sergeyus Glovackas who presented the Project G20 Skills «The role of trade unions in the development of skills and training."; ITUC-PERC policy advisor Olga Nicolae who touched upon the theme of regional issues, workers’ rights, as well as the main priorities of the PERC; head of Legal department of CTUA M. Piliposuan presented the changes in the labor code and their impact on working families; Head of Educational-Research Centre G. Vagharshakyan stressed the role of unions in ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men and Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation Eteri Matureli presented the activities and campaigns of the Women’s Committee of the GTUC.
Chairman of the standing commission of the CPA Council for ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men, Tiruhi Nazaretyan told about the activities of the Commission and the urgent problems facing it.
More than 60% of women in Armenia work in informal economy and are concentrated in low paid jobs and precarious work. Nevertheless the ILO Convention 100 and 111 has been ratified by the country, different forms of discrimination on the labor market continue to exists: both horizontal and vertical. There is a certain concentration of women in specific fields of activities as education and services whereas in technical fields women are lacking. On trade unions level most women are in leadership at the grassroots whereas at the top level the situation is totally different: only 8 women are members of the executive board out of 23 members; there is no women in top leadership of the confederation. The problem of women in leadership will be discussed together with the program and action plan in preparation of the congress of CTUA which will take place next year. Women’s committee made an appeal to CTUA leadership to sign the ITUC campaign Count us in ! and support the promotion of women in top leadership positions in the union.