The Annual Conference Women’s Section Of CTUBIH held in Sarajevo
„THE CHALLENGES OF THE MARKET ECONOMY FOR WOMEN IN THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT„
As part of general women’s activities in the Commerce Trade Union in BIH and also as a part of the FIET Project Activities in BIH, The Annual Conference was held in Sarajevo 02-03 October 2006.
The conference gathered 39 participants, the members of the CTUBIH, CTURS, SFORS as well as the representatives of the trade union movement in Macedonia and in PAM, Finland.
The conference focused on three specific issues during the two days: Informal Sector organizing, Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work for Women and Women in the Current Political and Trade Union Power. These issues have been presented and introduced by the experts from ICFTU Regional Office, gender task Force Centre of the Stability Pact is SEE as well as by the elected representatives of the Women’s Section of CTUBIH.
On the opening ceremony the video presentation has been shown as the introduction to the issues but at the same time as the overview of the activities implemented for women in the trade union movement of BIH.
The participants highly appreciated the participation and the message from Tarja Kantola, International Secretary of PAM, Finland and expressed their gratitude for the support given to the women in BIH by the Finish TU movement.
The Conclusions and Plan for future activities have been discussed in the working groups
CONCLUSSIONS of the Conference
On the Annual Women’s Conference 2006, the participants have agreed about the following Conclusions and Proposals:
THE INFORMAL SECTOR ORGANIZING
There are no official statistics concerning the number of the women employed in the informal sector in commerce in BIH.However it is known that 2/3 of the all population working in this sector are young women who work without any legislation framework and in most of the cases under teriouble conditions. The example is shown in the video presentation.
The proposal from the group is to first continue with the efforts to recruit these women in the trade union membership and to offer them mechanisms and tools for protecting their rights. CTUBIH should continue with its campaign to put the legal framework to the employment in this sector focusing on the protecting the right to work.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES AND RIGHTS AT WORK FOR WOMEN
In the role play the group’s members have made an overview of the current situation in BIH when it comes to the rights for women. One of the biggest problems today is slack of the implementation of the existing labor legislation. There is also tendency that provisions of the Labor law in connection with the rights of women and especial the price of labor will be decreased. This has been proposed and forced by the IMF and the World Bank. TU movement has to jointly put efforts in protecting the present provisions in order to make the young women able of being both workers and mothers. Women’s Section should continue with its activities to inform, educate and train women and by this to make them able of using the national legislation and international labor standards.
The proposal from the group is to put this effort as a priority in the future regional cooperation between women’s sections existing in the commerce and finance sector.
WOMEN IN THE POLITICAL AND TRADE UNION LIFE
This group used the pictures to express their views and opinion about the current situation. This method has been very well received by the participants. The group concluded that general position of women in political and TU life is not satisfactory. The Women’s Section of CTUBIH has made the major step forward in the last couple of years by adopting several provisions and proposing them on the last Congress of the union. The adoption of them by the delegates of the congress was the biggest success of the Section so far. The new challenge for the Women’s Section is to support the colleagues form the unions in Macedonia and in Croatia to do the similiar.In order to this there has to be continuity of the meetings of women on the regional level. This is at the same time the most important proposal from this group.
On the basis of everything above mentioned the participants of the Conference agreed on the following major activities in the next year?
- The regional Women’s Conference to be arranged with the support of the friends and sisters from PAM, Finland in Macedonia (?) gathering women from all trade union structures in commerce and finance in BIH and from the neighboring countries.
- Informational material to be made on the rights for young women working in the informal sector. This material should inform the membership about the developments in the organizing activities in this sector.
- The Women’s Section of CTUBIH will participate actively in the activities of the Women’s Section of the SSSBiH trying to include as much as possible women from our sector in the general activities on the confederation level.