BRICS leaders to carefully examine recommendations of trade unions

BRICS leaders will carefully examine recommendations of associations of trade unions prepared for the summit of the BRICS group (uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a meeting with trade unions representatives.

"We have tried to involve labour unions, youth organizations in the BRICS work," he said. "We’ll certainly take into account the recommendations you have prepared for the leaders of the BRICS countries, we’ll very carefully examine them," the president said.

Putin specified the measures that have been taken in the sphere of labour and employment during Russia’s BRICS presidency. In particular, a conference of the related ministers of the five states scheduled for January 2016 is being prepared.

The Russian president said that the BRICS countries are leading in the world in terms of reduction of unemployment, however, "much is yet to be done." According to Putin, modernization of the countries’ economies dictates higher requirements to the personnel skills. He said that the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) is already implementing projects for stimulating professional education and expressed the hope that this experience will be in demand also in other countries.

Referring to other problems, the Russian president said it was necessary to cut the "grey" employment and stimulate employers to the official provision of employment and payment of payroll salary. Putin said he was certain that the BRICS states had a set of measures that could help resolve these problems.
Putin said that "the formation of a more comfortable environment for doing business, opening of the access to easy-term financing sources and encouragement of investment" could be such measures.

"The joint work of the BRICS countries aimed at the development of the labour market is impossible without harmonization of such key indicators as working-age population growth, labour productivity in industry and agriculture, employment among the young people and women, the level of accidents and occupational diseases," the Russian leader said. According to him, to this end, Moscow has initiated "the development of a unified information resource of the BRICS countries."

Head of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia Mikhail Shmakov at the meeting passed to the Russian president a declaration of the BRICS countries’ unions summit so that he could discuss it with other leaders.

On Thursday, participants in the BRICS trade union summit adopted a declaration with recommendations to the group’s governments. In particular, one of them concerns the creation a BRICS rating agency and the group’s stock exchange.
Source: Itar-Tass