Ronald Janssen from the TUAC presented arguments about the need for wages increase for sustainable economic development as wage stagnation has been holding back the recovery, feeding forces of deflation, increasing inequalities and preventing upward convergence of wages in Central and Eastern Europe.

Mariko Ouchi from the ILO-Budapest office presented the ILO global wage report, while Sergejus Glovackas from the ILO-ACTRAV introduced ACTRAV priorities and action plan. Anton Leppik presented ITUC and ETUC campaigns.

Bela Galgoczi, ETUI, made analysis of the wage situation in Central and Eastern Europe, presenting recent ETUI publication “Why CEE countries need pay rise?”. He argued that while after the transition started all the countries had succeeded in converging wages with the Western Europe, this trend reversed after the financial and economic crisis. (https://www.etui.org/Publications2/Working-Papers/Why-central-and-eastern-Europe-needs-a-pay-rise).

Professor Bruno Sergi from Messina University presented comparative analysis about wage situation in SEE and NIS countries. He also argued that GDP growth that most of the countries achieved now should create space for wage increase also.
Participants debated the situation in their own countries, exchanged about trade union policies to argue for increased minimal wage, for more democratic and fair wage setting mechanisms, including by the social dialog processes, own approaches to define minimum consumption basket as reference benchmark and other possible indicators for decent wages, role of wage policies in reduction of informal economy and reduction of inequalities.