Oleg Budza, CNSM president: “Social partnership is the solution to social labour conflicts”

On March 29-31, the Humanitarian University of Sankt-Petersburg hosted the Fourth International Scientific and Practice Conference “Social labour conflicts in Russia and in the world”, attended by trade union leaders from Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, France, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus with the aim of identifying optimal mechanisms in preventing and solving social labour conflicts through the development of social partnership.

During the event, experts from the International Labour Organization, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, representatives of the central public authorities of the Russian Federation made presentations. The speakers of the conference paid special attention to the challenges of the social partnership – as an efficient system of development and improvement of the labour relations, the contemporary international trends in the development of the social partnership system and its application of the potential for solving the social labour conflicts.

Oleg Budza, president of CNSM, invited to the conference, commented on the recent international event stating that “it is important to develop a constructive social dialogue that stimulates technical progress, to apply viable mechanisms in promoting social dialogue and collective bargaining such as the social partnership system, to resolve social labour conflicts, including through strict adherence to international standards on various issues.”

Within the workshop on the work of trade unions to prevent and solve social labour conflicts, he mentioned that social labour conflicts are inevitable as long as labour force and employers exist. Employees, dissatisfied with working conditions, resort to various forms of protest, which, in the absence of trade unions, are chaotic. The task of trade unions is precisely that these protest actions of the employees take place in the spirit of organized law. That is why Oleg Budza agrees with those experts who explain that social labour conflicts are a component part of social life. In his view, the possibility of conflict is also a chance to dialogue. There is a need for an organized conflict involving the use of negotiations, which discusses the claims of the parties involved in the conflict and identifies acceptable solutions for the parties involved.

Unfortunately, considers the CNSM president, in the CIS countries, including in the Republic of Moldova, the problems of labour conflicts are not studied in depth. It is important to understand, he states, that all the problems between workers and employers must be resolved before the labour conflict is reached. Trade unions must identify the appropriate methods, provide the necessary arguments to persuade the employer to accept the employees’ claims. Then, it is necessary, says Oleg Budza, to ensure the representativeness of the parties in the process of solving labour conflicts.

Also, within the international scientific and practical conference “Social labour conflicts in Russia and in the world” there were also other topics discussed by the participants in the discussion boards and the workshops on the decisive role of the professional negotiators, the methodologies of research and analysis of social labour conflicts for the purpose of their forecasting, prevention and solution. A visit to the Centre for Monitoring and Analysis of Social Labour Conflicts in Sankt-Petersburg served as an additional contribution to the exchange of experiences in the field of conflict.

Department of mass media and international relations of CNSM