On 03 November the Council of Europe project "Enhanced social protection in Ukraine" in cooperation with the Aspen Institute Kyiv held a seminar "Social dialogue as an instrument for understanding” for the management of regional and central offices of the National Mediation and Reconciliation Service of Ukraine.

The participants of the seminar discussed the elements which are important for social dialogue, broadened its common understanding, and brainstormed on the role of the National Mediation and Reconciliation Service in the processes of recovery and reconstruction of the country.

Erlend Falch, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, during the opening remarks, noted that the Council of Europe continues to support Ukraine in close cooperation with national partners, in particular by implementing the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” for 2023-2026. "The protection of social rights is the foundation of democracy building in all states, and during the war, they are even more important. The war violated the social, economic, and labour rights of millions of Ukrainians. The topic of the seminar is closely related to Article 6 of the European Social Charter (revised) which stipulates that all workers and employers have the right to bargain collectively. With a view to ensuring the effective exercise of this right, it is important to promote the establishment and use of appropriate machinery for conciliation and voluntary arbitration for the settlement of labour disputes. Social dialogue can help to address the economic and social challenges that affect workers, employers and governments”.

Dmytro Kukhniuk, Head of the National Mediation and Reconciliation Service of Ukraine, 

emphasized the strong institutional and change-making capacity of the National Mediation and Reconciliation Service and underlined its importance during the post-war recovery of Ukraine.

The participants discussed the following issues:

• dialogue as an instrument for building a good society and understanding;
• opportunities for social dialogue through the prism of justice, as well as ways to ensure it;
• social dialogue during the war and in the period of post-war recovery.

In addition, during group work, the participants discussed the priority areas of interaction of the National Mediation and Reconciliation Service with other public authorities, employers and employees.

The seminar was moderated by Denis Poltavets, Director of Program Development of the Aspen Institute Kyiv, and Roman Kobets, Researcher at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy.

For reference:

• Social dialogue is the process of defining and converging positions, reaching joint agreements, and taking agreed decisions by the parties to the social dialogue, which represent the interests of employees, employers, executive and local government bodies, on issues of formation and implementation of state social and economic policy, regulation of labour, social, economic relations.

The seminar was held with the support of the Council of Europe project "Enhanced social protection in Ukraine " which aims to attain that vulnerable groups of people, including war-affected population in Ukraine, enjoy improved level of social rights and social protection.