More often than not, our unfamiliarity with what our guaranteed rights are is the very reason why they are infringed. That was the main idea behind a campaign launched to set up the Decent Work Balkan Network, which gathered all those relevant in the region, who are active in promoting economic and social rights, so that they could, by joining efforts, strengthen the oversight over the implementation of existing laws and advocate for the adoption of new ones, which would contribute to a greater respect of economic and social rights. The campaign was conducted by the Olof Palme International Centre from Sweden, prominent around the world for its promotion of worker's rights. The project was implemented with the following partners: SOLIDAR (Belgium), Agenda Institut (Albania), STBIH (Commerce and Services Union in BIH), Progress Institute for Social-Democracy (Macedonia), Progetto Svillupo (Italy), CLARD (Kosovo/UNMIK) and the Centre for Democracy Foundation (Serbia).
"Decent Work Balkan Network – putting equality and solidarity at the heart of EU integration" was a two-year regional project (2011-2012) financially supported by the EU.
Over the course of two years we developed an informal Serbian decent work "network” comprising non-governmental organisations dealing with socio-economic issues and two representative unions. The Alliance of Independent Unions of Serbia and the United Branch Trade Unions (UGS) Independence. The network conducted various activities at the local and regional level, as well as joint advocacy actions aimed at promoting decent work agenda, which was presented to authorities of the Republic of Serbia and the competent ministry.
The following has been achieved so far:
- A case study on decent work in Serbia, was presented in Brussels along with the others from other regional countries. Click here to download the case study.
- Training held at a national level on some aspects
- A round-table discussion on "How to decrease the informal economy and black market employment" (Click here to watch a video recording of the round-table discussion.)
- Two regional trainings
- A seminar on "Exercise of employment and labour rights – legislation and practice"
- Round-table "Towards labour and employment reform" Click here to watch the video recording of the debate, and download the verbatim records here.
- A group of NGOs met with the delegation of the European Committee of Social rights to discuss the system of collective complaints established by a Protocol to the European Social Charter. The meeting was initiated by a group of non-governmental organisations and unions gathered around the "Decent Work Balkan Network" project with the aim of inviting the Government of Serbia to ratify the system of collective complaints, thus demonstrating its full commitment to the protection of economic and social rights of the people of Serbia.
- We participated in three round-table discussions in Brussels and where we informed the representatives of the European Parliament and the European Commission on the state of labour rights in Serbia and asked for additional support of the European Union for the decent work agenda in Serbia and the region.
- In 2011 and 2012 we took part in an NGO Fair, together with CATUS and UGS Independence where we informed the general public on decent work and labour rights.
- We distributed over a thousand leaflets and publications on decent work and talked to over 2000 members of the public. SOLIDAR, our partner organisation, made a short video on decent work during our campaign. Click here to watch the video.
Our partners on the project were the following organisations: SOLIDAR (Belgium), AGENDA Institute (Albania), CLARD (Kosovo/UNMIK), STBIH (Commerce and Services Union in Bosnia Herzegovina), Progress Institute (Macedonia), Progetto Sviluppo (Italy).
U mreu su bili uklju?eni i saradnici: Savez samostalnih sindikata Srbije, UGS Nezavisnost i Inicijativa za razvoj i saradnju iz Srbije; Centar za promovisanje civilnog društva, Centar za gra?ansku saradnju i Inicijativa za saradnju i razvoj iz BiH; ?eški savet o spoljnim odnosima.
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