What does it take to improve social dialogue and promote better-quality employment in the Western Balkans?

The ILO is contributing to establishing fair and well-functioning labour markets and improved working conditions for women and men in the economies of the Western Balkan by strengthening social dialogue, and providing skills, tools, technology, and solid policy evidence to labour market institutions. This work has been supported by the EU-funded Employment and Social Affairs Platform (ESAP) project since 2016. 

The ESAP project faces the immense challenge of strengthening social dialogue in contexts characterized by political polarization, zero-sum approaches, and a weak culture of consensus.  These types of conditions require a long-term commitment to implement legislative and institutional changes as well as to instill behavioral changes. The project organized regional gatherings of trade unions, employers’ organizations and governmental institutions, which established or strengthened ties across the economies of the Western Balkans and facilitated interactions among  social partners with limited or no ties. 

In 2018 and 2019, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia expanded the powers of their respective tripartite Economic and Social Councils, creating space for the Councils to more actively participate in policy formulation. To enhance knowledge sharing and capacity building, a Performance Benchmarking web application tailored to the needs of each national institution was built in close collaboration with all social partners in the region. Data from this tool indicate that some of the achievements of the project are sustained. Around 50 per cent of tripartite proposals in Serbia and North Macedonia are incorporated into policies or legislations of these countries. This percentage reaches 90 per cent in Albania, albeit with fewer proposals than in the other two countries. 

Still, social partners in the Western Balkans region need further strengthening to fulfill their role of shaping policies improving working conditions, either through tripartite social dialogue or collective bargaining. This will be the focus of the ILO’s work in the next few years.   

Another major achievement of ESAP is the establishment in 2018 of the regional Network of Agencies for Amicable Settlement of Labour Disputes (ASLD). Working together with the 28 members of the Network from across the 9 participating institutions, the Project succeeded in increasing recourse to alternative dispute resolution in the subregion. Six of the ASLD institutions in the Western Balkans are using a web application developed by the ILO to assess and compare their performance.  Around 223 mediators, conciliators and arbitrators were trained, of which  60 percent  were women. 

The ESAP project also established and supported the Network of Labour Inspectorates in the Western Balkans, and it will continue to support it going forward. This network contributed to developing cooperation among labour inspections in the Western Balkans, promoting information and knowledge sharing regarding the alignment of legislation to international labour standards and EU directives in the field of occupational health and safety, and developing and implementing the Guidelines for reinforcing the role of labour inspectors in addressing undeclared work. Over 90 high level managers and inspectors from seven labour inspectorates in the Western Balkans, of which 52% were women, had the opportunity to work together in regional events, peer reviews and training, while an additional 100 labour inspectors in North Macedonia, 137 in Albania and 30 new inspectors in Kosovo were trained locally on undeclared work and occupational safety and health. 

The Albanian Labour Inspectorate became a showcase for digitalization and the use of artificial intelligence, which are now being applied to maximize resources and optimize workflows. The ILO supported the development of a unified data management and analysis system. It increased the accuracy of uncovering undeclared work and other violations through the utilization of data mining and machine learning (DMML) algorithms. This system, coupled with training of the entire corps of labour inspectors and an upgraded internet network, has improved the performance of the Albanian Labour Inspectorate and working conditions of labour inspectors.  

The Labour Inspectorate of Serbia conducted intensive inspections and an awareness raising campaign in construction, retail, accommodation, and food services to address undeclared work and safety and health at work. A total of 220 inspectors, each equipped with a smart phone to enhance access to the case management system and expedite inspection processes, distributed 10,000 information brochures, one per individual (worker or employer) in all 25 districts of Serbia. Among the total of 6,316 undeclared workers identified during the inspections, 3,855 (61 per cent) transitioned into formal employment. Additionally, out of 313 unregistered businesses, 166 were immediately registered with the Business Registry Agency.

Building the capacity of constituents and other partners to engage with each other and working with them to improve institutional efficiency and innovation has enabled ESAP to have a significant impact on policy-development and working conditions in the economies of the Western Balkans. ESAP intends to continue providing this support as it enters the next phase of implementation.