CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL DIALOGUE IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE

04/09/2014

Caption: Participants on the Conference

On 8 and 9 April 2014 in the hotel "Molika" Bitola a conference on social dialogue in South East Europe was held organized by the Independent Trade Union of Energy, Mining and Industry of Macedonia.

The conference was attended by trade unions from Macedonia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. The conference was opened by the President of SSERI, Dimce Damcevski. On the conference the President of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia, PhD Zivko Mitrevski was also present who in his opening remarks emphasized the importance of social dialogue and its challenges in times of global crisis.

Republic of Macedonia, especially from 2010 onwards has a constant improvement of social dialogue and is a one of few examples where social partners in times of crisis have shown significant results. President Mitrevski pointed out the need to fill the gap in the functioning of social dialogue in companies in newly established industrial areas where such social dialogue is lacking, as well as the existence of problems associated with signing of collective agreements and weak union organizing.

Representatives of trade unions has opened discussions and exchanged experiences on the functioning of the social dialogue in their countries and came to a conclusion that organizing such conferences and seminars is needed due to importance of sharing experiences of different countries, especially those that are members of the European Union.