Trade Unions have expressed the need to strengthen regional and cross border cooperation, in order to implement ILO Recommendation No. 205 on Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience in Eastern Europe.

The proposal was made during a regional seminar supported by the ILO’s Bureau for Workers’ Activities, held in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul region from 10 and 12 July, 2018.

Participants suggested running wide-ranging awareness-raising activities at the national and international level, using existing regional trade union cooperation platforms such as the Pan European Regional Council (PERC) Summer School and the Baltic Sea Trade Union Network (BASTUN).

Trade unionists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, discussed ways of making the best use of Recommendation No. 205, which is the most up-to-date instrument on the issue of conflicts and disasters and is the most recent instrument adopted by the International Labour Conference in 2017.

During the seminar, participants presented country reports and shared information on their organizations’ experiences of contributing to conflict resolution, disaster management and peace building. In that context they discussed civil wars and ethnic conflicts in South Caucasus, Central Asia and Ukraine, which have caused large numbers of internally displaced people. Refugee crises, earthquakes in Uzbekistan and Armenia, the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe and the Aral Sea ecological disaster were also the subjects of discussion.

The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Ms. Taalaikul Isakunova provided her insights into the ILO’s role in assisting member States to cope with social-economic crises, especially in the areas of unemployment, informalization, migration and social security. She reaffirmed her commitment to promote social dialogue and said that the Government of Kyrgyzstan needs to be more consistent in making social dialogue an effective instrument for finding the solutions to the issues highlighted during the regional seminar.

Similarly, the President of ITUC/PERC Irakli Petriashvili, outlined the constraints and challenges which national union federations are confronted with as a result of an increasing erosion of social dialogue and state labour administration services, specifically employment services and labour inspections.

ILO Recommendation 205 supersedes the Employment (Transition from War to Peace) Recommendation, 1944 (No. 71), and is aimed at providing guidance on measures to generate employment and decent work for the purpose of prevention, recovery, peace and resilience with respects to crisis situations arising from conflicts and disasters.

For more information, please contact:

Aleksandria Gocha
Senior Specialist in Workers’ Activities
ILO Office in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Moscow)
Tel: +7 495 933 08 24