Sub-regional seminar on ILO recommendations №204 has started in Baku
13 Jun 2016
Today the sub-regional seminar on ILO recommendations №204 has started in Baku. The officials of ITUC and ILO Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia are going to attend at two-day seminar.
At the seminar
reports on "ILO's policy on informal economy", "National
conditions and trade unions' policy ", "ILO recommendations to
national and international trade unions organizations" will be delivered
and also discussions on employment issues , human rights will be made.
The Chairman of
Azerbaijan Trade Unions Confederation, Vice-chairman of International Trade
Unions Confederation and Pan-European Regional Council, Member of Parliament
Sattar Mehbaliyev welcomed the participants and stressed the importance of the
seminar.
Mehbaliyev said in
his speech that Azerbaijan plays a key role in ensuring stability and security
in the region. Unfortunately, today there is a key factor which prevents a
full-scale regional cooperation.This is 20
percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and 7 surrounding
regions that have been occupied by Armenia for more than 20 years.As a result of this conflict, more than 1 million
Azerbaijani people became refugees and internally displaced persons.
The presence of
so many refugees leads to an increase in the number of unemployment and
employees working in informal economy. This occupation fact is reflected in 4
resolutions of the UN Security Council,statements
of the OSCE Minsk Group and also in official documents of Council of Europe,
moreover it is recognized by the international community.
The Chairman of
Azerbaijan Trade Unions Confederations (AHIK) also noted that social economic processes
in the world created new challenges that affected on the interest of the whole
international community. One of these problems was informal economy that
required a serious approach and urgent decisions.
As in all
countries in the world, in Azerbaijan economy as well as the legitimate formal
economy, informal economy was also available.That
is the negative side of the informal economy, where hired workers had no any means
for the protection of employers' lies , they even didn’t have the opportunity
to appeal to the courts.
S. Mehbaliyev
said that while talking about the importance of solving the problems of the
informal economy, we have to touch the issues concerning not only the volume of
production but also employees working in the field. Workers in informal economy
have no proper labor status and their rights are not protected. Nowadays, 65%
of workers have not been registered in the country.
However, it
should be noted that due to the creation of an electronic registration system
in the country in mid- 2014, «e-portal» has been operating since then and electronic
services is one of the more commonly used by the population.
According to the
figures provided by the State Social Protection Fund and Ministry of Labor and
Social Protection during 2014 June – 2016 April, the registration of labor
contracts through e-services was 1,840,000 times.
At the end of his speech S.Mehbaliyev said, “We as
trade unions consider that social partners should not struggle with employers
in informal economy, on the contrary they have to create for them favorable
conditions to cross into the legal economy.Without
such conditions in the informal sector, it will be very difficult to establish
a trade union. In order to accelerate this work AHIK has carried out the
educational projects with the participants working in informal economy for
several years”. To shift from informal economy to the formal one, we
have developed an action plan to implement the ILO recommendations No. 204.
AHIK has an
opinion that the interests of workers in the informal economy should be
reflected in general and sectoral collective bargaining. We are promoting
through trade union and republican mass media that socially useful labor is
more prestigious and giving the information of negative consequences of
informal economy.
We intend to actively
carry out this work in the future.
