ACTRAV Symposium on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining “Challenges and developments in collective bargaining in specific countries/regions” = draft summary =

Trends:  Reconfirm the trends identified yesterday in terms of: Trade union density Coverage of collective bargaining  More information on developing countries Lower trade union density than in high income countries with exceptions in certain countries where trade union density is rising Coverage of collective bargaining: idem again with some exceptions Important to stress that the conclusions above depend on whether one considers the trends in relation to the percentage of wage and salaried workers or of all those in employment  Positive country examples: Positive examples of bargaining with success for workers (Maersk / Royal Jordan / India / etc)

Trend in Transition economies  Increasing practise of collective bargaining in transition economies  More workers covered by collective bargaining  Demand for improvement of collective bargaining structures and processes  The need for organising and the extension of collective bargaining to informal economy workers

Key principles reiterated:  Freedom of association is a necessary condition for collective bargaining  importance of establishing unions in some countries  ensuring a conducive environment for CB  Collective bargaining for what? Issues:  More and better quality jobs for all  Wages: address wage declines / stagnation  OSH: importance of preventive measures  Improving working and living conditions of workers  …

Key challenges identified:  Impact of structural adjustment / neo-liberal policies on CB  Flexible employment practices – flexibility vrs employment security issues – Increasing use of safety clauses (flexibility…)  Increasing Precarious work – employment relationship  Sub-contracting: CB not tackling this issue  Coverage for Specific categories or workers:  Informal economy  EPZ  Migrant workers  …  CB in the Public Sector  Maturing of labour relations in the public sector  Extension of rights to public sector workers

Challenges…  Negative impact of the economic crisis: erosion of gains  Challenges facing labour administration  Under-resourced  Active promotion of tripartism and tripartite bodies  Labour inspection  Bargaining certification issues  Challenges facing institutions of collective bargaining:  Consolidate policy and institutions  Reinforce policy support for collective bargaining  Strengthening the capacities of these institutions

Challenges…  CB and globalisation / regional integration:  EU enlargement and cross-border coordination  Dealing with multinationals  Dealing with violations of worker’ rights and labour disputes  use of “Solidaristas” / cooperatives  increasing use of lawyers / courts against unions  Importance of the ratification of ILO standards e.g. C151

Challenges…  Trade union specific issues:  Dealing with the challenge of pluralism and avoiding fragmentation  Challenge of organising (IE, precarious workers, …)  The need to strengthen union capacities (policy, joint positions)  Strengthening international trade union solidarity to deal with multinationals  Trade union funding issues  Restructuring of trade union structures to ensure stronger unions  Dealing specifically with unprotected workers – progress being made with informal economy workers

Challenges …..  Need towards industrial relations in market economy  Need for labour law reform, education and training on collective bargaining, specialised training  Challenges of introducing sectoral bargaining  Initial reaction to market economy resulted in increased number of disputes-individual and collective  State involvement in terms of setting up structures e.g tripartite structures, legal framework  Need for information, data on situation in developing countries

Future work:  Trade unions : see trade union challenges mentioned above  ILO:  Data collection: support countries in data collection particularly in developing countries  Analyse deeper the qualitative dimensions of CB agreements  Greater support for the capacities of labour administration and the social partners at the ff. levels: Policy; Institution building; Legislation: ensure a conducive environment for bargaining  More work needed on extending the coverage of CB to Precarious workers; Sub-contracting; Informal economy; EPZ; Migrant workers; etc  Promotion of ratification and application of relevant conventions

Questions for Debate:  Quantity vrs quality issues  Scope of Coverage: analysis and interpretation of the data for developing countries:  narrow analysis in terms of signatories of CB; or  global analysis of impacts (e.g. minimum wage bargaining for formal sector workers and its impacts: for formal economy workers only (narrow interpretation) even though there is an indirect impact on informal economy wages (global interpretation).