From 1st to 3rd November 2023 took place in Sofia / Bulgaria a seminar about “Decent employment and social security in Western Balkans – from local specificities to the common EU future”, organised by the Confederation of Labour PODKREPA, in cooperation with EZA and funded by the European Union. The seminar took place in the framework of the EZA special project for workers’ organisations in the Western Balkans. Representatives of workers' organisations from Bulgaria, France, Serbia, Albania, Romania, and North Macedonia participated in the seminar.
The seminar’s objective
1. Provide space to discuss transformative solutions to the major social challenges, exacerbated by the overlapping crises, which are additionally exacerbating inequalities and deepening social divides in the region.
2. To facilitate capacity of trade unions from participating countries to deliver tangible results for working people, especially in terms of decent living and working conditions
3. To speed-up the strategic cooperation of trade unions with other social institutions with regard to support a more active involvement of trade unions’ representatives in the EU enlargement process.
Description of the seminar
The event was opened by political interventions with primary focus on the global and regional impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the consequent series of crises that must be addressed by strengthening the ties between the European Union and the aspiring members of the Western Balkans.
The opening panel was followed by three expert’s presentation on: - The new EU package for WBs - a future-oriented tool, focused on the green and digital transitions; -EU ‘s fundamental values, which hold us together: freedom, democracy, respect of the rule of law and equality; - Information technologies development - impact on the citizens.
The interventions from participating trade unions gave information on the social and environmental dimension of recovery - outcomes and challenges, faced by workers’ organizations.
The think-tank session “A trade union response to the crisis: innovative solutions in interest of working people” was dedicated to the exchange of practices between trade union leaders and expert on successful organizing strategies.
The possible patterns for a larger coverage of all categories of workers were discussed during the conclusive round table, with presentations by trade union leaders and experts of key idea on how to organize new members and how to reach the moder categories of workers – digital, platform, followed by general discussion.
Summary, closing remarques, conclusion and evaluation of the seminar.
Key ideas
The shockwaves of the cost-of -living crisis have reached the six Western Balkan countries, this somehow has only served to activate the EU support. The EU has extended its solidarity measures to the WBs, offering support to vulnerable households against high energy costs. Additionally, the EU was investing in the construction of new infrastructure to reduce the region’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels. This practical cooperation is taking place in parallel with progress on the EU accession path.
Recognizing the difficult situation in the region, the EC presented a new growth plan for the Western Balkans. The plan rests on four pillars. Most important of which are to bring the WBs closer to the EU Single Market; and to deepen regional economic integration through the establishment of a common regional market. This common regional market must be orientated towards the future of work, as the two main challenges are the demographic characteristic of the labour force in the region and the little advancement in the digital transformation. This market is crucial for unlocking the economic potential of the region and making it more attractive to European investors.
EU provides financial support to WBs region to allow the catch up with the EU average. Certainly, we may enumerate many positive effects from the use of those funds, but they are also some risks, which may be summarized as follows:
- Dependency on EU Funding
- Economic Disparities
- Corruption and Mismanagement
- Inefficient Use of Funds
- Rent-Seeking Behavior
- Sustainability Concerns
- Political Tensions
Here, the meaningful involvement of national social partners in the programming, monitoring and implementation of EU funding will help to overcome these risks and to ensure a framework that is conducive to enhancing social dialogue at the national and sectoral level, taking into account national circumstances.
National social partners with the support of their national governments where relevant, should work together to best identify how to ensure effective access to the allocated EU funds.
Balance between state institutions and civil society’s organizations in the region is destroyed, public sphere has become unruly and fragmented, even polarized. In such polyphony of voice, opinion and conduct, trade unions must be able to channel the social issues via direct communion with working people, so that working people to feel connected, empowered and politically represented by their organization. Otherwise, trade unions will continue to lose members and influence, at the same time when workers will continue to lose rights and income.
In these turbulent times workers may and should not anymore continue to pick up the bill for the cost-of-living crisis. The trade union message is: clear - No more austerity! Trade unions will not allow to return to austerity policies and are proposing another way to face crisis situations, investment for better paid, sustainable jobs covered by collective agreements. Here, building links of solidarity and maintain close fraternal relations between trade unionists in in the region is a priority.
The EU has travelled a long way since the founding moment and although the compliance with its founding values of democracy, freedom, protection of fundamental rights, and the Rule of Law.is presumed in the law, the original political project to have a Union that strives constantly to improve the living and working conditions of workers seems to fade away. The problematic relationship between the original idea of the EU and the direction it took calls fundamentally into question the whole nature of the relationship between the world of labour and the Europe that is being created. In addition, there is always the question what dominates, values or interests? In practice,the series of recent crises and the ongoing stagnation in the integration process are demonstrating the difficulties to find common policies and to reach compromises between different national aspirations. Thus, trade union values – democracy at work, social solidarity, ethnic tolerance, civic honesty, gender equality have never been more important than now in the face of a growing cost-of-living crisis and the need to combat increasing inequalities. With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers are suffering an unprecedented loss in purchasing power and are among the hardest hit by the inflation and the current crisis. In this difficult environment, workers representative organizations are facing systematic and targeted attacks, with governments and employers neglecting social policies, that are crucial to achieve social peace and advancement within the EU integration. Trying to overcome difficulties, trade unions across WBs, will never step back before challenges, firmly determined to remain on the forefront of defending the rights and safety of workers. Recent developments in the political landscape have raised concerns about the erosion of trade union rights, thus, more campaign, mobilization is needed to find ways to enforce trade unions’ values across the region. To do that, trade unions must take into account the realities of the labour and the needs of workers, including changes of tasks and jobs, innovation, mobility and transitions into and between jobs.
Conclusions and recommendations
Social Europe is clearly struggling to return to its past stability. This time, the challenge comes from the misguided policies, that hit workers with a double whammy. After suffering substantial real-wage losses, they face the prospect of a severe economic downturn destroying jobs, because the businesses are still using the cost-of-living crisis as an excuse to increase prices more than could be justified by higher costs. Ultimately, to speed up the process of EU integration, WBs countries need to go hand in hand with reforms, with an increased focus on strengthening and promoting the EU’s core values.
The clock is ticking – the cost-of-living crisis made it clear for all that the EU’s infamous integration policy is facing a range of challenges in fields such as the rule of law, including judicial independence, fight against corruption and organized crime, and media freedom, as well as economic development, environmental protection, and social cohesion. Social dialogue can make a substantial contribution to addressing these, through advocacy, monitoring to achieve longer- term transformative societal change. Because, when it comes to democracy at work, trade unions are the only organization, which are demanding for enhanced transparency, and accountability with a focus on the needs of workers. In addition, the involvement of trade unions in the enlargement process can contribute to deepening citizens’ understanding of the reforms needed to meet the requirements of EU membership. This will help ensure that EU integration is based on genuine civic participation in the public debate.
Trade unions form the region must overcome their fragmentation, strengthening their own organizational structure otherwise they are risking to become self-focused organization, far away from the real needs of workers, they are representing. With regard to actively recruit new members and to have real strength in negotiations a vision with three strategic dimensions must be implemented:
- short terms strategy – direct contact, very quick reaction, working as a team, calling for experts, informing the responsible institutions;
- middle term strategy – be honest with members, not take false promised, maintain constant channel of communication, better explain the achievements– for the moment the large public is mostly informed on what is not achieved by trade unions. And our success stories remain invisible for the society.
- long-term strategy – go directly to universities and schools for campaigning trade unions values and activities to young people. The long-term strategy must include also measure to reach to the new categories of workers and to work actively to increase members' motivation and confidence.
Measures to expand the scope of social partnership to ensure better representation and protection of all categories of workers must include:
- return to the core and the main tool of trade unionism -social dialogue as a system for solving multiple problems and challenges, based on mutual trust between involved parties.
- participate in national and EU projects and seeking opportunities to involve the general public and NGOs.
- be active and supportive, constantly looking for opportunities to strengthen and to adapt our activities to the new conditions, with future of work in mind
To revive WBs region accession process, require a strategic vision and efforts from national institutions first on the future of their countries. Second on how to restore the credibility of the accession process with concrete actions to build an inclusive society. A society which is respecting the rights of workers, is promoting the expansion of social protection coverage, providing guarantee of occupational safety and health, and ready to enhance strategic planning skills, responding to the pressing need of local citizens to access high quality employment.