The meeting, organised by ESAP 2 project, funded by European Union and implemented by ILO, was opened by the Ada Huibregtse, Chief Technical Advisor at ILO. Mrs. Huibregtse noted that the network members will use this event to strengthen the grounds for building sound, fair and trusting relationships in the workplace.

Prof. Dr. Sandra Grujičić, Assistant Minister in the Sector of Labour and Employment of the Republic of Serbia and keynote speaker, emphasized that the culture of dialogue and tolerance, compromise and understanding are of great value especially for the tripartite relations. She added that the methods of active settlement of labour disputes are a great step forward.

During the meeting, participants discussed Performance Benchmarking Framework and agreed that the Framework is a necessary tool for ASLD to assess their work. The participants found the proposed Results Framework and indicators to be an excellent document to start with. Using a number of indicators, this document is blueprint to increase use of ASLD system by workers, employers and their organisations, as well as increase its effectiveness. Furthermore, its implementation will provide the ASLD institutions with a tool to measure and benchmark their performance at institutional and regional levels.

The ILO experts and ASLD institutions will hold bilateral meetings to finalize a Performance benchmarking Framework that fits individual contexts in each economy and creates bases for benchmarking at regional level. The Performance Benchmarking Framework is expected to be adopted at the next regional meeting.

The meeting was also used as an opportunity to promote Case Management System (CMS), an effective tool for ASLD work and knowledge management platform. Mrs. Cristina Mihes, Senior Specialist for Social Dialogue and Labour Law at ILO, pointed out the importance of strengthening the ASLD Network through sharing experiences and learning from each other’s good practices with regard to CMSs.

She highlighted examples from the region: the Agency for ASLD from Republic of Serbia has collected a wealth of information regarding labour disputes through its CMS, while the system used in North Macedonia and Albania can disaggregate data per occupation. The Albanian CMS’s feature notifying mediators regarding deadlines or the North Macedonian CMS feature allowing the case to stay open for long without administrative intervention can be introduced to other CMSs.

All these information were found to be very useful for policy formulation.

The meeting is organised as part of Employment and Social Affairs Platform (ESAP) 2 project. ESAP 2 is a regional 3-year project funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Regional Cooperation Council.

Through ESAP 2, ILO team supports the Western Balkans economies in developing regional policy and performance tools in the area of labour disputes resolution and industrial relations and supports them to upgrade their case management systems.

Welcoming remarks and introduction to the objectives of the workshop: Ada Huibregtse, Chief Technical Advisor at ILO

Keynote speech by Prof Dr Sandra Grujičić, Assistant Minister in the Sector of Labour and Employment of the Republic of Serbia

Presentation of Ivica Lazović, director of the Agency for Amicable Settlement of Labour Disputes in Serbia, on the impact of the recent amendments to the ASLD law

Discussion on strengths and weaknesses of ASDL system: Ada Huibregtse and Attila Kun

Administrative staff of the Annual Regional Meeting of Network of ASLD: Aida Avdić-Selmanović

Representatives from Albania and North Macedonia at the Annual Regional Meeting of Network of ASLD

Representatives from Bulgaria at the Annual Regional Meeting of Network of ASLD

Presentation of Luljeta Krasta on the New developments in regulating mediation/conciliation in Albania