Tripartite social dialogue in Armenia

On July 7 Yerevan hosted a tripartite seminar on National Tripartite Social Dialogue in Armenia: Towards a New Start. It discussed the conclusions of the ILO fact finding mission to Armenia last February. The mission was carried out by ILO Consultant Slava Egorov and Senior Social Dialogue Specialist Youcef Ghellab (DIALOGUE Department in Geneva). The mission undertook a detailed review of the legal and institutional framework for social dialogue and collective bargaining in Armenia. At the same time it agreed with tripartite constituents on a series of activities to be undertaken to support the social dialogue, including the organization of a study visit by a tripartite delegation to Lithuania to get exposed to a good social dialogue practice (June 20-23), the organization of a tripartite seminar to adopt an action plan to strengthen social dialogue as well as the participation of selected social partners in training on collective bargaining and dispute resolution scheduled for September at the International Training Centre in Turin.

Taking part in the seminar were 33 representatives of the government (Ministries of Labour and Justice), the National Assembly and social partners. Ara Petrosyan, First Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, and Youcef Ghellab opened the seminar. The deputy minister thanked the ILO for its support and underlined the government’s intention to take into consideration the conclusions of the seminar to enhance the social dialogue framework. Youcef Ghellab listed the activities undertaken so far and encouraged tripartite constituents to take up the conclusions and recommendations of the ILO assessment mission and the lessons learned from the study visit to Lithuania to improve the functioning of the Republican Tripartite Commission (RTC) and the legal basis for collective bargaining. Youcef Ghellab and Senior International Labour Standards Specialist (ILO Moscow) Alain Pelce contributed presentations on European practices of a tripartite social dialogue and on Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) Convention, 1976 (No. 144).