At the end of October, ETF’s Head of Operations, Josef Maurer, was pleased to attend the Transport Community‘s Social Forum where he shared the experience of our transport workers in the Western Balkans regarding health and safety, including access to PPEs, enforcement of the rules in passenger transport, border controls for cargo, access to healthcare for migrant workers, lack of facilities, job security and repatriation of seafarers. At their latest meeting, the Forum adopted its rules of procedure and the ETF will be permanently invited to their meetings.
We welcome this as a step in the right direction and we will ensure that the concerns of affiliates and lives of transport workers are addressed through this channel.
The Social Forum is a tool for increased engagement with transport unions in the Western Balkans. Transport unions can use this tool for alignment with the EU acquis as well as enforcement:
The Transport Community is an international organisation composed of the EU and the six Western Balkan Parties (Republic of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro and Republic of Serbia). Its key objective is to extend the EU transport market rules, principles and policies to the Western Balkan Parties through a legally binding framework. Its scope includes road, rail, inland waterway and maritime transport.
The relevant acquis covers technical standards, interoperability, safety, security, traffic management, social policy, public procurement and environment.
The Transport Community is supported by a Permanent Secretariat based in Belgrade, Serbia which provides administrative support acts as a Transport Observatory to monitor the performance of the indicative TEN-T extension and supports the implementation of the Western Balkans Six (WB6) Connectivity Agenda.
The ETF is happy to be on board and invites unions who are interested to get in contact with Josef Maurer, j.maurer@etf-europe.org
Transport Community website: http://www.transport-community.org/