Good Practices of the Escs-Sis Daily Functioning

AICESIS

«Good practices of the ESCs-SIs daily functioning»

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Sharing experiences

SyntheSis note OF THE madrid international workshop

March 3-4 2016

EN

SyntheSis note OF THE madrid international workshop

“Good practices of the ESCs-SIs daily functioning”

(Draft)

Summary

-Workshop synthesis notep. 3

-Workshop program – Annex 1p. 13

-Introduction note – Annex 2p. 16

-Questionnaire – Annex 3p. 17

-Questionnaire answers – Annex 4p. 20

-List of participants – Annex 5p. 21

This first shared-experience workshop between members of AICESIS, regarding «good practices of the ESCs-SIs daily functioning», organized by the Spanish ESC and our organization in cooperation with the Dutch SER, was a great success.

The major success factors are detailed below:

-The subject in itself: a choice which attracted attention from all ESC´s attending.

-Sound preparation: a detailed questionnaire, developed together with the Spanish ESC and the Dutch SER with advice from AICESIS (Annex 3) profited from 21 answers from ESCs-SIs members. Its analysis and presentation of the quantitative and qualitative results at the beginning of the workshop allowed for an appropriate background for framing and discussion;

-A balanced program: with involvement of delegates from four continents of AICESIS ( Annex 1);

-Numerous diligent attendees: almost 80 people attended the workshop and were really involved during the two days of the event (see list of participants on annex 5)

-Full interventions meticulously elaborated: all the speakers drafted well-made interventions full of interesting information;

-Live debates, during which all delegations had their chance to express themselves several times;

-A warm and well organized welcome in the Spanish ESC premises, that succeeded ingreat organization, warm welcome and generous hospitality for the members.

Important note: all the presentations signaled in this synthesis note by a (*) sign are available on the AICESIS website

FIRST DAY / THURSDAY 3 MARCH

Opening session

Opening speeches were made by Mr.José Maria LACASA ASO, Vice-Presidentof the Spanish ESC, and Mr. Agripino Antonio Núñez, AICESIS President, both emphasizing the importance of sharing experiences as one of the objectives of the organization

General workshop introduction

Then, the opening session, led by Mr. KIM Dae-hwan, President of the Korean ESDC, started with a presentation of the answers from the survey made by Mr. Francisco González de Lena, Cabinet Director of the Spanish ESC President(*).

Mr. González de Lena thus commented the existing gaps between the members’ situations, but also pinpointed similarities that may lead to useful classifications on each of the 8 sections of the survey: Government / Parliament relationships, relationships with ministries’ departments, relationships with social partners, relationships with civil society, evolution of ESCs-SIs, member training, strategies to help agreements, and activities’ broadcasting.

He then identified and commented 8 words or key expressions: the representativeness (of represented organizations), independence (mandatory for the ESCs-SIs), consensus (culture and added value of ESCs-SIs), quality (required for assignments), facilitation (a major role), process (importance of methodology and time-factor) and the advisor function.

For several reasons (history, national priorities, social and economical conditions, power imbalance…), there isn’t a unique ESC-SI model. Diversity is our fact, but this diversity can/shall be organized, and exploited, especially in AICESIS, which is what we are doing through this workshop. An excellent picturing of this diversity/unity idea was introduced at the closure with the photography of the famous painting by P. PICASSO “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.

This general introduction panorama, very helpful, is destined to be deepened during 3 upcoming sessions each with a specific theme.

Commentary & debate

The commentaries following this synthesis were focused on the following topics:

-Mr. Boulkassoum HAIDARA, President of the Mali ESCC emphasized the need to take into consideration that some ESCs-SIs include religious organization’s as members;

-The need to include the gender on a transversal basis in all sectors of the society was strongly highlighted by Mrs. Rabiatou DIALLO, Presidentof the Guinean ESC;

-Mr. Faouzi AMOKRANEfrom the Algerian CNESreminded that some ESCs-SIs have a legal right to issue own-initiative opinion;

-Finally, the importance of determining factors, such as on one hand the nature of the ESC-SI establishing texts (constitution, law, decree, contractual agreement) or on the other hand the social and political context were highlighted respectively by Mr. Patrice EZATY, President of the ESC of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and by Mr. Munther SHAR’E, President of Jordanian ESC.

Session 1: Social Dialogue

The first working session on social dialogue - still under presidency of Mr. KIM Dae-hwan, President of the Korean ESDC - was introduced by a presentation of Mr. Youcef GHELLAB, Head of Social Dialogue and Tripartism Unit of the ILO Governance Department (*).

From this presentation we can summarize the below elements:

-There is no official definition of social dialogue, due to the diversity of the norms, organizations, power imbalances…;

-ILO adopted an operational definition, empirical, of social dialogue: «all types of negotiation, consultation or exchange of information between governments, employers and workers (“social partners”) on issues of common interest»;

-Mr. GHELLAB then commented the diversity of types (bipartite, tripartite, and “tripartite plus open to other civil society organizations”) and levels (nationwide, branch, local, transnational, worldwide) of labor relations;

-4 “pre-conditions” are mandatory for an effective social dialogue under the auspices of ILO conventions: freedom of association and collective bargaining, strong employers and workers’ organizations, representative and independent, appropriate institutional support, and finally a political will to engage in a dialogue;

-Thus, after reminding the structural factors of ESCs-SIs weight, YG enumerated and commented the main challenges concerning our societies, including the ESCs-SIs in their daily tasks and in the future: emerging work types (“UBER”-ing of the economy, newly created jobs, independent jobs, telecommuting…); change of the labour market composition, with an increased polarization between the protected sectors and the others; technology upgrades; digitization, robotics, youth & women unemployment, developing informal economy, developing inequities and imbalances; rise of new actors and social networks, and new political figures; information society and growing importance of medias and social networks.

The social contracts are challenged by these trends, credibility and sustainability of government policies, especially on a fiscal and reallocation level are put to the test, and the ESCs-SIs can play a noticeable part in taking those challenges into consideration.

Commentary & debate

In reaction to this briefing, Mr. Boulkassoum HAIDARA, President of the Mali ESCC, offered his own definition of social dialogue, and reminded us that his Council holds weekly listening sessions for social partners, poor people…

Then Mr. Dominique ATCHAWE, member of the ESC of Benin who reminded requirements of tolerance and independency.

Mr. Mustapha KHLAFAfrom the Morrocan ESEC, who highlighted the difficult social dialogue in this country since no ILO convention has been signed, weak employers response and engagement towards this, as well as lack of will from the Government on this topic.

Mr. Dionis OñA, Spanish ESC, highlighted the limits of the consultative functions of the ESCs-SIs.

Finally Mr. Iosif DISKIN, from the Russian CC, introduced as «tripartire + association», reminded the need to listen to the civil society as a whole.

Session 2: How to reinforce efficiency / influence of ESCs-SIs?

The second working session was moderated by Mr. José Campos,Vice-President of the Spanish ESC, who isolated 3 issues to think about: are ESCs-SIs answering today’s topical issues? Are they open to democratic expressions of civil society? And, are they suitable to today’s world run by digital era and new means of communication and participation?

Five well-prepared interventions were made as an answer to these invitations:

-Mr. Ibrahima MBOW from the Senegalese ESEC(*), in the name of UCESA, reported that in Africa, partnerships between ESCs and institutions are, beyond differences, very tight. The ESCs-ISs are the “flagships” of participative democracy. Mr. MBOW then insisted on importance of a good communication strategy, especially that ESCs-ISs are facilitators of civil society organizations; he quoted relevant examples such as: open door days, referral procedure through civil request, the creation of observatories with a watch and alert function. Then he insisted on the requirement of an adequate financing scheme and representativeness of the acting figures.

-Mrs. Veronique TIMMERHUIS, Secretary-General of the Dutch SER(*), explained the importance of her Council on a national scale through several factors: the long-lasting tradition of social dialogue and cooperation between stakeholders in her country, the ability of SER to negotiate dynamic and useful tradeoffs, “conceptual efficiency” based on a deepened preparatory work so that participants share the same diagnosis, the fragmented and volatile nature of the political landscape, the strong will of social partners to have an influence together through SER intermediary.

More than the means, Mrs. TIMMERHUIS insisted on the requirement for preparatory work, on the relevance of the analysis and on the ability to sell SER works to the Government, Parliament… and on the follow-up

To sum up, she pinpointed some key elements: anticipation and prep work, deepened work, a tight and confident relationship with the Government and the Parliament, as well as timeframe dimension and dialogue culture.

-The President of the Korean ESDC, Mr. KIM Dae-hwan (*), introduced the functions, structure and operating model, then the main results obtained by his institution through time, and specifically the tripartite agreement regarding the labor market reform in September 2015, that he himself presented, as main architect of this agreement, during the AICESIS General Assembly in Moscow.

In order to reinforce its intervention ability, the ESDC is trying to obtain a modification of its establishing texts, aiming at reinforcing the diversity of its representation (with more women, young people, self-entrepreneurs, seasonal workers… being represented), also the broadening of its competence area and lightening of its internal decision-making structures.

-rs. Iraima CAPRILES, Executive Director of the Dominican Republic ESC, first developed a semantic training by defining what a “good practice” is, then enumerated and commented the seven golden rules that condition the transposition into standard good practices. She raised legal and ethical rules concerning administrative law as well as respect, legitimacy, representativeness, transparency, responsibility, that should be considered as background for all ESCs-SIs actions. She finally insisted on the necessity to adopt a communication strategy targeting clarity and efficiency of the message, as well as the importance of creativity and innovation as a means of drawing attention from stakeholders. To emphasize the point every participant received a matchbox gift with the bylaws of AICESIS and the President´s address on a documented USB key.

-Mr. Iosif DISKIN, in the name of the Civic Chamber of Russia, insisted on the innovative practice of Russia with their extended network of Chambers on several levels (national, local, cities), which is now covering the entire Russian Federation territory.

Regarding practices, we can notice the “zero base hearing” which aims at re-evaluating all submissions, in order to check their added value and interest, as well as the mandatory requirement for all executive bodies (ministry, agency, federal service) to add and consult a public council, this being a key element to a submission review.

Commentary & debate

During the last debate of the day following the presentations:

-Mrs. Hakima NAJI, from the Moroccan ESEC,pleaded that no “absolute best practice” exists so far, but only an efficient practice during a specific phase in an institution evolution and study. This is conditioned by parameters that can be historical, eco-social, political, human… By inviting ourselves to deconstruct / reconstruct those practices she shown that a ready-to-use or to import solution doesn’t exist, but that shared ideas in between AICESIS open doors, tend to make people think, create ideas and encourage us to act by rethinking our approach. She concluded by saying that the Moroccan ESEC’s priority, taking into account the loss of trust into institutions, is to maintain and reinforce trust of organizations of civil society in the ESEC role.

-Mr. Emmanuel WONYU, General Secretary of the Cameroon ESC, raised transversal questions that are the determination of the more or less important role of an ESC-SI through the nature of its stablishing text (constitution, law, regulation…) and also by the level of socio-economic development.

-Mr. Patrice EZATY, President of the ESC of the Democratic Republic of Congo, declared that he prefers to talk about shared experience instead of good practices, in order to take the process dynamics into consideration. He also highlighted the importance of the digital era’s upcoming.

-Finally, Mr. Ibrahima MBOW, from the Senegal ESEC, mentioned the recent government referral procedure of his Council, inviting him to make offers in order to lighten the procedures, at the moment very intricating, of procurement markets’ handover.

*

SECOND DAY / FRIDAY 4 MARCH

Summary of first day debates

The summary of the first day debates was introduced by Mr. Patrick VENTURINI, AICESIS Secretary-General. This presentation was used a main thread to the synthesis of the first day presented supra.

Session 3: How to reinforce legitimacy, representativeness and “license to operate” of ESCs-SIs?

The moderator of this session was Mrs.Rabiatou Serah DIALLO, President of the Guinean ESC.

This session was introduced by four national presentations:

-Mr. LIU Weiming, Secretary-General of the Chinese ESC, reminded that the Chinese ESC’s action is included in the XIIIth plan 2016-2020 for social and economic development. The ESC works as an idea laboratory and develops a consensus-driven culture. Specialized working groups have been created, especially on Sustainable Development in provision of 2030, as well as the youth.

The ESC will plan a conference on “Technology progress, opportunities and challenges” in Shanghai in August 2016.

-Mrs. Annie Podeur, Secretary-General of the French ESEC (*), successively introduced the history, status and missions, role and self referral types, composition, organization and modus operandi of the Council. She then insisted on her mediums and communication tools, for which strong progress has been made (i.e. a dedicated individual is following and feeding social networks).

She then insisted on the need for a follow-up on projects and impact measurement. Thus, the impact is 50% related to the quality of opinions related, and 50% on the promoting of those opinions. In the end, impact is rarely straightforward.

-Mr. Felix PEINADO, Counselor of the Spanish ESC (*),concentrated his speech on the introduction of the survey done in 2015, in cooperation with the European Committee and the Moroccan ESES regarding “societal actors and democratic governance; role of social partners in consolidating the political democracy and development of participatory democracy”, especially in the euro-Mediterranean zone.

- Mrs. Josephine Provence, Secretary-General of the Curacao ESC (*), introduced the Council’s history since 1966, its role regarding social dialogue as well as the main current challenges: promoting social principles, angle work towards politics’ rating, favor communities’ involvement, search for a broader visibility of the realizations of the council, and also benefit from adequate financing.

Commentary & debate

The following debate, helped the audience understand, from comments made by Mrs. Hakima NAJI (MoroccanESEC) and by Mrs. Annie PODEUR (FrenchESEC), hardships, even dangers, of self referral through citizen’s petition, due notably to the ability by conservative organizations to mobilize people.

Prof. Munther SHAR’E, President of the JordanianESC, then detailed the characteristics of operation of his Council, as well as main results generated in the current situation.Mr. George VERNICOS, President of the Greek OKE, also introduced the current dynamics of Greece’s Council. Mr. Daniel BECKER, Secretary-General of the Luxembourg ESC, did the same concerning his institution.

Mr. Florian COSTACHE, President of the RomanianESC, insisted again on the crucial need for a great communication strategy.

Finally several speakers expressed their wishes to see the workshop continued on topics such as communication strategy, follow-up and impact measurement of opinions, as well as use of new technologies and possibilities offered by information society.

Conclusions and follow-ups: How to proceed with shared experiences?

This session was chaired by Mr. John JACOBS, President of the Curacao ESC.

Mrs. Veronique TIMMERHUIS, Secretary-General of the Dutch SER, presented conclusions and some suggestions on the theme (*): “how to proceed with shared experiences in the future?” and developed the main aspects below:

1. A second glance: why are we doing this? Why insisting on sharing experiences?

AICESIS is the association of ESCs-SIs, that is the place to gather for those institutions. The ESCs-SIs are all unique entities in their own country, and have small possibilities in their national context to think about their own role and functioning. That is why it is very important and interesting to gather and learn from other countries’ experiences.

On one hand we share informations and experiences on topics we are all concerned with: poverty, inequity, climate change, labor market transformations, future of the labor, social protection floor, etc.

But it is also important to share experiences on the way we do our job. We are the relevant platform together. In our countries, we have no other comparison point. This kind of assembly, yesterday and today is a kind of teaching, training and consolidation of our capacities. It is particularly important for relatively new councils, and also for colleagues being new to the world of ESCs-SIs. But it is certainly also interesting for experienced councils, in order to discuss the evolution of social dialogue. We all have to adapt to evolution of situations and to learn from each other.