Education

Report on the 104th session of the International Labour Conference


The International Labour Conference is the highest decision-making body of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and it includes plenary sessions and working in committees. As the trade unions’ (workers’) representative of the Croatian delegation, Ivana Šepak-Robić, a legal officer of Matica – Association of Croatian Trade Unions, participated in the Conference. Other members of the Croatian delegation at the 104th session were Jelena Katić and Zlata Penić Ivanko (representatives of the Croatian Government), and Lidija Horvatić (a representative of the employers).

PARTICIPATION IN THE WORK OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE APPLICATION OF STANDARDS

This year, the work at the Conference was carried out by four committees: the Committee on the Implementation of Standards, the Committee on SMEs and Job Creation, the Committee on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy and the Committee on Feedback Discussion on Social Protection (Labour Protection). Our representative, Ivana Šepak-Robić, participated in the work of the Conference on the Committee on the Implementation of Standards, which this year, after two years of employers’ blockade, adopted its conclusions. The tripartite discussions on individual cases were carried out before the Committee, and they were mostly related to violations of conventions No. 29, No. 87, No. 122 and No. 182 of the ILO.

2012 CRISIS

For the last two year, the employers’ group has been obstructing the adoption of the conclusions of the Committee on the Implementation of Standards regarding the issue of defining the right to strike and the powers of the Committee of Experts. Neither of these issues has been resolved nor has any significant progress been made so far this year. However, the “2012 crisis”, as it is colloquially called, has been mitigated by the very fact that this year the Committee on the Implementation of Standards nevertheless managed to draw its conclusions.

THE COMMITTEE ON TRANSITION FROM THE INFORMAL TO THE FORMAL ECONOMY

The result of the work of the Committee on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy is a new international labour standard that was adopted by a majority vote at the plenary session, and it should facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of workers from the informal to the formal economy. The new recommendation provides strategies and practical guidelines in the form of 12 guiding principles on the policies and measures that can facilitate the transition from the informal to the formal economy.

RED CARD TO FIFA

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation held a traditional reception for workers’ delegates on Tuesday, 9 June 2015. The gathering was marked by the symbolic giving of a red card to FIFA. The intention of this gesture was to draw attention to the threatened labour rights of workers involved in the preparatory construction works on the eve of the Soccer World Cup and the workers who perform supporting works during the World Cup. The reception was certainly a good opportunity for representatives of trade unions from around the world to meet and exchange experiences.

FIGHT AGAINST CHILD LABOUR

On the World Day Against Child Labour, 12 June 2015, there was a very interesting panel discussion entitled No to Child Labour – Yes to Quality Education, where one of the panelists was Kailash Satyarthi. It is a frightening fact that even today, in the 21st century, there is a large number of children who have virtually no access to education and are forced to do hard physical labour or are forced into under-age marriages that result in modern slavery.

 

Sadržaj ove internetske stranice isključiva je odgovornost Matice hrvatskih sindikata.