Around 40 participants from the PERC region took part in the activity. The main items on the agenda were: the evaluation of the work done by the women’s network in the region; discussion of the new challenges; preparation for the ITUC congress ; campaigning for ending violence and harassment against women and men at the workplace, lobbying for an ILO Convention supplemented by a Recommendation; tackling the gender pay gap and pension gap; preparation of action plans both on national and regional levels on fighting violence and closing the gender pay gap.
The following experts shared their work and experience together with the participants: Merima Ejubovic, FES Sarajevo office, Enisa Salimovici, coordinator of the ITUC/PERC Sarajevo office, Nataliya Levitska, Vice-President PERC , Anton Leppik, Executive Secretary of the PERC, Montserrat Mir, Confederal Secretary ETUC, Chidi Kind, Director of the ITUC Equality, Rebeka Balogh, Policy Assistant Women and gender Equality EPSU.
During the round table organized with all participants and during working groups the following issues were discussed: what action to undertake on national and regional level as concerns violence at the workplace, how to lobby the governments for adoption of an ILO instrument on fighting violence and harassment at the workplace; what action to undertake to combat segregation in occupational sectors, break the glass ceiling and vertical segregation, how to better value women’s skills; what action plans to develop to fight inequalities and stereotypes; how to achieve gender balance in decision making; how to get more women in collective bargaining teams and fight for gender neutral job classification.
After the Women’s School the PERC women’s committee evaluated the activity and included some proposal in its action plan for the next year: working on a pay rise campaign for the PERC region taking into consideration the gender pay gap and pension gap; continue developing the Count us in Campaign, which had a big success in the region with very concrete results as concerns promoting women in leadership positions and increasing participation of women in unions and collective bargaining; continue to support and develop the PERC young women network and organize activities taken into consideration the specify of this particular group.
The PERC Women’s School participants expressed their solidarity with the actions undertaken by Serbian confederations about the existing Law on Supporting Families and Children in Serbia which does not correspond with the expectations of the young mothers and families.
