The focus of the trade unions - issues of informal economy
On September 17-19, 2014 in Yerevan at the "Congress" hotel the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) held a joint subregional seminar on the theme "The Informal Economy: Trade unions’ Actions Policy", which was attended by the representatives of the trade union centres of the CIS countries.
Chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia E.Tumasyan in his welcome address stressed the importance of such seminars and said that such problem also exists in Armenia.
The Executive Secretary of the ITUC-PERC GrigorGradev speaking about the obstacles posed by the informal economy for trade union activities, noted the fact that the activities of trade unions in matters of overcoming these obstacles inspires some hope for the opportunity to resolve the problem.
Senior Specialist on Workers' Activities of the Moscow office of the International LabourOrganisationSergiusGlovackas spoke about the consistent work of the ILO in issues of the struggle with the informal economy during the recent 12 years and also mentioned that shadow, informal employment is not something new in the world, especially in developing countries and countries with transition economy , and many people are involved in this area, providing temporary jobs for themselves.
Chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Bulgaria PlamenDimitrov in his report "The transition from the informal to the formal economy" expressed concern about the fact that the informal economy in fact exists in many countries and it is a powerful obstacle for the economic development of these countries.
During the seminar representatives of trade unions of Bulgaria, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova and Armenia came to conclusion that the shadow economy having a global character greatly affects the economy of the countries and the social protection of workers .
The issues of social-political situation in some countries and issues of trade unions activities in these countries were also discussed. Senior Social Security Specialist (ILO) Mariko Ouchi gave a presentation on "The minimum threshold of social security."
Senior Specialist in Workers’ Activities –CTA(ILO-Geneva) Magnus Berge also spoke about difficulties for trade unions to work in the conditions of informal economy and about ways of overcoming such difficulties.
Director of the Institute of Labour in Moldova VsevolodBarbaneagra spoke about the challenges the cause of which is the existence of the informal economy in their country, and the representative of the ILO Office in Geneva Jean Durunsoy presented the program "Application of the strategy of vocational training for G20", which aims to strengthen the national system of vocational education.
The representative of the ILO Office in Geneva JeanDurunsoy and the coordinator of the ILO Moscow office Elena Kudryavtseva summed up the results of the seminar noting its productivity and importance.
