Apart from CECOP and DIESIS, participants from Italy (CECOP member Legacoopsociali and the UIL trade union), Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia participated. The workshop had the purpose of promoting personal and household services (PHS) within the social economy in Slovenia and the Western Balkans, as well as, more widely, to discuss the issues of social cooperatives, cooperatives, social enterprises and the social economy.

Karolina Babic introduced the work done by CAAP in promoting social cooperatives in the Maribor region and the nomination of Maribor as the Capital of the Social Economy. A number of concrete cases, including a Slovenian cooperative of homeless people, were presented. Michela Vogrig, vice president of Legacoopsociali, concluded the workshop by sharing the Italian experience in establishing entrepreneurial networks and consortia in order to do PHS more efficiently and with a higher quality, which necessarily involves a limited loss of sovereignty on the part of the participating grassroots cooperatives. She also emphasized the need to better focus on the social impact of the PHS services, by involving as much as possible not only the PHS operators, but also their users and all other stakeholders involved. A European research on PHS is being drafted within the framework of this project, and will be ready within a few months.

By Bruno Roelants

The EI FOR PHS (Employee Involvement in Personal Care and Household Services) project is expected to foster AWARENESS of employers and workers on workers’ rights to Information, Consultation and Participation (ICP) in the Personal Care and Household Services (PHS) sector at national and European level and to boost BUSINESS MODELS AND GOVERNANCE APPROACHES that ensure the effective involvement of employees in the management of PHS enterprises. The project seeks to serve as a tool to policy makers, trade unions, workers and employers in their efforts to create full, decent and quality employment in PHS sector through the enhancement of workers’ ICP rights.

LINKS:

CENTER CAAP: https://www.facebook.com/centercaap/

EI FOR PHS: http://www.eiforphs.eu/en/

DIESIS: http://www.diesis.coop/

LEGACOOPSOCIALI: http://www.legacoopsociali.it/