Baku gathers trade unionists to discuss promotion of ILO Tripartite declaration of principles concerning multinational enterprises and social policy

The event was organized with the support of the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV) and the IndustriAll Global Union.

The meeting brought together heads of oil workers unions and representatives of national trade union centres from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation.

ILO ACTRAV Deputy Director Anna Biondi presented a guide on application of the declaration by workers’ organizations that was developed by ILO experts.

Azerbaijan reports the growth of trade union membership and collective agreements in multinational companies of the oil sector. The chairman of Oil and Gas Industry Workers’ Trade Union of Azerbaijan, Jahangir Aliyev, noted that the number of trade unions in international oil companies operating in Azerbaijan increased from 3 in 2005 to 22 in 2012.

At the same time participants expressed concern over the increase of labour conflicts and violation of trade union rights in the oil sector.

They also focused on labour conflicts in the Mangistau region, western Kazakhstan. The chairman of the region’s trade union, Abdulkarim Alkhatov, briefed on the situation.

Trade unionists of Russia and Azerbaijan expressed their readiness to help their counterparts from Kazakhstan in training trade union activists.

Participants drafted national action plans on promotion and application of the ILO Tripartite declaration among oil workers’ trade unions in three countries.

ILO experts also visited Azerbaijan’s Neftyanye Kamni oil platform to monitor oil workers’ working conditions and to study experience of social partnership of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).