11th Meeting of the SEE TU Forum

The 11th meeting of the SEE TU Forum was held on 9-10 May 2013 in Banja Luka – Bosnia and Herzegovina, during which the trade union leaders in this region discussed important current events, challenges, problems, and trade union positions on the matters of common interest.

In addition to the issued related to the efficient social dialog, influence of the international financial institutions (particularly IMF), organization and recruitment of new workers to trade unions, a special attention was placed on the implementation of the ILO Conventions. The trade unions have emphasized a need for permanent monitoring of the application of the ILO Conventions, reporting and filing appeals to ILO in cases of the violation of labor related rights. Several important conclusions have been formulated during the meeting, as follows:

• SEE trade unions support and join the ITUC Global campaign for the organization and recruitment, which is the most important strategic interest for the trade unions, something they have to deal permanently, finding new forms of recruitment of workers within new forms of labor relations, utilizing positive experiences and practices of others;
• Once again, the trade unions leaders have given their full support to the implementation of the PERC – LO Norway Project: Tackling taxation, informal economy and corruption, as these are important issues which constitute an obstacle for any recovery and development in the SEE countries;
• Considering that the presence of the international financial institutions, especially IMF, brought to the drastic reduction in workers’ and social rights, that the social dialog has not secured necessary results, that the collective bargaining is endangered due to the IMF terms and conditions and the misuse of these conditions by the SEE countries’ governments, the Forum members will oppose to the attempts of their respective governments to impose drastic reduction of rights, they will have discussions with the representatives of IMF and World Bank to obtain relevant information pertaining to the terms and conditions of new credit arrangements;
• Any form of campaigning will be supported, including the systemic collection and publication of information relative to the workers’ and social rights (Equal Times); it is also essential to establish good cooperation with media which often distort the image of trade unions, or even misrepresent them by spreading a bad image, which will give an opportunity to media to become independent and more objective in their dealing with trade unions and their activities.

ITUC / PERC SEE Office Sarajevo