ILO project to increase the effectiveness of tripartite and bipartite social dialogue, including collective bargaining and dispute resolution in Albania

Background

The new Labour Code of Albania, which came into force at the end of 2014, provides for the establishment of regional tripartite Councils in addition to the National Labour Council. This process has not started yet mainly because of the lack of clear representativity criteria of workers’ and employers’ organizations at regional level.

Collective bargaining is limited in practice and the number of workers currently covered by collective agreements is also very low, especially in the private sector compared with the average in the EU. Reasons include weak organization of workers and the lack of collective bargaining infrastructures of employers’ organizations.

Existing mechanism of amicable settlement of labour disputes does not function properly either, in particular at regional level. Lack of specialized professional labour mediators, low awareness among potential beneficiaries, no records of labour disputes and case management information are to be counted among current shortcomings.

Objectives

The ILO will assist the tripartite constituents to define and agree on a set of pre-determined, objective criteria for participation in tripartite and bipartite social dialogue at the national, sectoral and regional levels, and will contribute to enhancing institutional and technical capacity of social dialogue institutions at regional level.

Also, the ILO will continue to assist the tripartite constituents in the implementation of the provisions of the Labour Code relating to collective bargaining and dispute resolution.

In doing so, the ILO will:

1. facilitate tripartite negotiations over secondary legislation, through providing technical advice during the drafting process;
2. assist in the establishment of a database of collective agreements;
3. advise on the assessment of national and regional labour dispute mediation services and assist in reviewing current regulations, in order to increase labour mediation effectiveness;
4. assist in the establishment of a labour dispute management information system;
5. assist in developing and implementing of a continuous training programme on labour mediation.

Moreover, the project aims to enhance the capacity of social partners to participate in policy dialogue and collective bargaining. In particular, it will enable employers’ and workers’ organizations to deliver value to their members through targeted, timely and useful services and thus become more relevant and representative.

Partnerships: In order to reach the above mentioned results, the project will inter alia facilitate knowledge and know-how sharing and exposure to European practices through creating synergies with the EU funded sub-regional project on “Economic and Social Affairs Platform (ESAP)” for the Western Balkan countries, including Albania.