NIS: Collective Labour Disputes Round Table

Labor conflict resolution and the role of the trade unions was the topic for a PERC regional workshop on 2-3 December 2008 in Moscow supported by the ITUC Solidarity Fund and the Moscow office of the ILO.

Representatives of a number of organizations from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan attended the event. The workshop addressed the challenges to trade union policies for resolution of industrial conflicts and more particular the legal, institutional and procedural arrangements needed for the efficient exercise of the right to strike and other collective actions. The workshop revealed the wide variety of patterns of regulation of the use of collective labor actions across Europe but focused more on the particular difficulties in Russia and other countries where governments and police are to often siding with the employers against the interests of the workers in the region of the NIS. Additionally participants discussed and proposed to PERC ideas for future activities in 2009.