Report from the LISC workshops, 17 and 18 June 2020

Within the project Labour Informational System in Croatia/LISC by Metalworkers’ Trade Union of Croatia – Industrial Trade Union (SMH-IS) two workshops were held in Zagreb on 17 and 18 June 2020, with the aim of identifying information on labour market, internal and external, and their availability.

Around 20 trade unionists (shop stewards and experts of SMH-IS and UATUC), three employers’ representatives and one representative per Croatian Employment Service, Croatian Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Labour and Pension System and Labour Inspection took part.

The workshop participants discussed employment, work with employers in activities in which SMH-IS is active and the Croatian labour market, as well as (un)availability of key information. Participants got acquainted with the documents pertaining to decent work (ILO Decent Work Agenda, European Pillar of Social Rights, EU directives, UATUC Work Fit for People concept and its six dimensions: good wage, protection of health, learning and career progress, safety, a voice at the workplace and working time).

The discussion also covered the issues of access to the labour market, quality of jobs, i.e. elements of decent work, key regulations and collective agreements, social security (unemployment, healthcare, pension) and freedom of union organizing and social dialogue, including collective bargaining, as a mechanism of implementation of the decent work concept.
The discussion among others emphasized that the education system does not prepare young people for entry into the labour market. The lack of credible statistics and analytics was emphasized, especially with regard to the collective bargaining system, frequently present insufficient information and knowledge of the regulations and rules by employers but also conscious violations of workers’ rights, etc.

Significant differences were noticed in the participants’ discussions and interventions which, among others, indicates lack of information and knowledge of the labour market and of the basic terms in the field of industrial relations, which confirms the thesis about the lack of the so-called Croatian model of decent work.

Identifying and disseminating information and knowledge on such a model would be important to be included in school curricula, influence on public policies and development of bipartite social dialogue, including collective bargaining. After the workshops, the requests were sent to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Labour and Pension System to submit data which would, in their structure, be comparable with the data from the Norwegian report, as a contribution to the report for Croatia.

Zagreb, 20 July 2020