Upcoming: CESI conference on working conditions in the health care sectors in the Balkans

The conference will address the challenges facing workers’ participation and trade union rights in Serbia and the wider Balkan region, with a particular focus on the health care sector, and explore the potential role of the European Pillar of Social Rights to stimulate reforms in especially Serbia’s health, social and employment policies in the context of the country’s EU membership accession process. It will be held in the context of CESI's EU co-founded 'PillAct' project which aims to strengthen member organisations’ capacity to use the European Pillar of Social Rights in their work.

The European Pillar of Social Rights is built around 20 principles organised in three chapters: equal opportunities and access to the labour market, fair working conditions, and social protection and inclusion. Health care workers in Serbia can be both beneficiaries and enablers of these principles.

For employees as workers in the health care sector, the Pillar encourages fair wages, safe and healthy working conditions, social dialogue, and involvement in decisions affecting their work. At the same time, it envisages a role for employees working for providers of health care services to ensure access to health care for all, as recognised under Principle 16 of the EPSR.

Often described as a 'compass' to improve living and working conditions across Europe, the European Pillar of Social Rights should also serve as an important benchmark for EU candidate countries to raise health care and employment standards and social rights to EU standards. While countries such as Serbia has formally committed to align with the European social acquis, recent developments suggest a growing gap between formal commitments and their implementation in practice.

The conference will examine how challenges to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights can undermine workers’ rights and trade union freedoms. Particular attention will be paid to freedom of association and social dialogue, which are both fundamental rights and essential preconditions for the effective implementation of social rights.