18 October, 2010
On 7-8 October, ICEM organised a session on decent work in Dakar, Senegal, together with the national trade union center Union Démocratique des Travailleurs du Sénégal (UDTS) and the ICEM affiliate, Syndicat Unique des Travailleurs des Industries Diverses du Sénégal (SUTIDS). The meeting was sponsored by CSC Belgium, and ICEM Vice President Alfons de Potter was one of the facilitators of the meeting.
“We benefit from the experience of Belgium in discussion of employment problems,” said SUTIDS General Secretary Seyni Mbaye Ndiaye. “This country is very advanced on social issues.”
In Sénégal, the focus of decent work is to combat poverty and find a solution to social exclusion. The priority is to create employment for everyone backed by social protections. Such employment needs to have the support of social dialogue and the respect for global labour standards. In Sénégal, a legal decree has been passed regulating temporary work. Nevertheless, it is the duty of trade unions to monitor the legislation. The country has a national programme to promote decent work.
SUTIDS has a bilateral programme with CSC Belgium to strengthen capacities. The decent work programme was preceded by two days of a regional women's workshop for countries in French-speaking West Africa, which concluded that ICEM must do more to strengthen trade union action in the informal economy. Unions from Mauritania, Togo, Bénin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sénégal, and Romania took part in the meeting. The unions also called upon ICEM to exert pressure on the production chains inside the DRC to put a stop to violence against women and rapes in Kivu.
The meeting ended with a press conference.