The meeting concentrated on the trade union responses to the financial and economic crisis, with special attention being put on the coming World Day for Decent Work on 7 October and other practical actions the national centres affiliated to the ITUC-PERC are undertaking.
The first day of the school was devoted to the analysis of the reasons and causes of the crisis, to the reflection of the policies and actions the international trade union movement has been implementing and to assessment of the national anti-crisis programmes, particularly in the countries that applied for the support from the International Monetary Fund.
The school was addressed by the Ministry of Labour of Slovakia
The key speakers for the school were:
Andres Inotai, Director of the Institute for World Economics in Budapest,
Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the ITUC
Peter Bakhvis, Director of the ITUC-GU Washington Office and
Bela Galgozhi, ETUI researcher.
The participants urged to concentrate on job creating initiatives, through fiscal stimulus, and the need to ensure that there is no return to "business as usual", also indicating the danger of ideological crisis linked with the raise of militaristic tendencies as well as the challenges of the years ahead to balance the budgets. The necessity to act on national level to ensure that "broader shoulders" bear "bigger weight", particularly, the need to abolish flat tax practices and return to progressive taxations were voiced by the speakers and supported by the participants.
During the second day the School has discussed the different initiatives the unions of Europe are going to undertake in the framework of the World Day for Decent Work, particularly basing on the good experiences of the actions in PERC region in 2008. The participants were also introduced to the human and trade union rights policies of the ITUC and the HTUR network for the PERC region set up on the separate meeting the day before.
The representatives of PERC Youth and Women committees have introduced to the activities and plan of these two groups, concentration on the discussions about the effects of the crisis.
The participants of the School were also informed about the coming ITUC and PERC activities, linked with the preparation of the 2nd ITUC World Congress in June 2010.
