Brussels, 21/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - The Pan-European Regional Council (PERC) of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was set up on Monday 19 March in Rome. This council is the result of a resolution adopted on the occasion of the ITUC Founding Congress on 1 November 2006 in Vienna (see EUROPE 9298). In line with the PERC Constitution, John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), will serve as the general secretary for PERC. Mikhaïl Shmakov, President of FNPR Russia, has been elected President of the Council.
The PERC will work to promote the strategies, priorities and policies of the ITUC and will seek to contribute to social development, the consolidation of democracy and to respect for human and workers' rights in the region. It will focus on the promotion of trade union action, and representation of workers' interests through the strengthening of the trade union movement and support for bilateral and multilateral cooperation. With ETUC, the PERC will work to promote social dialogue, decent work and the European social model across the entire continent, an ETUC press release states, adding that the PERC consists of 87 national centres affiliated to the ITUC representing more than 85 million trade union members across the continent, from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Commenting on the birth of this new Council, Guy Ryder, ITUC General Secretary, said: “The PERC will work to promote and sustain workers' rights and decent social standards throughout the continent, at a time when globalisation is posing ever new challenges to trade unions everywhere”. John Monks felt the Council is a “new, exciting start for European trade unionism across the whole continent of Europe”. Mikhaïl Shmakov declared: “Fundamental workers' rights are violated not only in Russia, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova, but also in Western Europe, Baltic countries and in the Balkans. That is why PERC is putting protection and promotion of workers' trade union rights among its highest priorities”. (gb)