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ILO |
By 2015 all United Nations Member States have pledged to promote gender equality and empower women
(from UN Millennium Development Goals)
Russian-Canadian joint conference Women of United Russia, organized by the Administration of Ivanovo region and Ivanovo State University with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Social Development and the Confederation of Business Women of Russia, took place on October 22–23 in Ivanovo. Irina Melekh, Gender Focal Point represented the ILO Moscow Office at this conference.
The Gender Strategy of the Russian Federation was for the first time presented at the forum. It was prepared in the framework of a Russian-Canadian project by a group of Russian experts under the direction of the Ministry of Labour.
First Deputy Minister Ms. Galina Korelova underlined that this concept is not a direct reflection of the existing National plan on women’s state improvement for 2001–2005, which can be considered as one of the pilot currants. The gender strategy should become an instrument of establishment of the state gender policy, the main aim of which is to assist sustainable development of Russian society as a whole on the basis of today’s views on "social justice in distribution of roles between men and women in the field of family and industrial relations, political and public life, work and business activity, informational sphere…".
In the frameworks of the conference there were two round tables organized – "Gender education as a factor of sustainable development of Russia" and "Gender aspect of business: problems and perspectives". Both round tables were very active and informal, which gave the opportunity for participants to speak and collect interesting information on how the issues of gender education and women’s entrepreneurship are solved in Ivanovo region.
In accordance with the Programme of Cooperation between the ILO and the Russian Federation for 2002-2003, the ILO Moscow Office together with the Ministry of Labour, trade unions and employers and with active participation of civil society institutions is planning to organize a broad discussion of the new gender strategy project in the regions of Russia. The representatives of the Canadian project, in the framework of which the Ivanovo conference was organized, fully supported the intentions of the ILO Moscow office and expressed their readiness to become one of the ILO partners in the planned project.
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The ILO Moscow Office and the Chamber of Commerce of the Chuvash Republic jointly organized a seminar on socially responsible restructuring of enterprises, which took place on October 25 in Cheboksary.
The seminar gathered some 30 representatives of the biggest
enterprises of the Republic, such as Ellara instrument-
making
company, chemical company Khimprom, textile factory Pike and others. The seminar
had four themes for discussion:
– reasons that make restructuring process necessary;
– formation of the future image of the organization;
– definition of optimal structure outlines; reduction of social costs;
– strategy and tactics of the changes, lessons and results.
The seminar was the first out of series of events planned in
Cheboksary, as it was agreed with Mr Nikolai Fedorov, President of the Republic
during the official mission of the ILO Moscow Office in August. The next seminar
scheduled 
for
the forthcoming year will be devoted to gender issues.
The ILO has been actively involved in the process of enterprise renovation and restructuring in transitional economies since 1995. Already in 1998 the ILO started its collaboration with ZEiM enterprise in Cheboksary, Chuvash Republic. ZEiM JSC (the abbreviation stands for Electronics and Mechanics Plant) is the chief company of the business system created as a result of reformation of the Cheboksary Production Association Prompribor – industrial instrument-making enterprise. In 1989 the management of the ZEiM plant started a project of socially responsible restructuring of their enterprise. Today it has the network of over 30 daughter companies, which altogether employ about 3 500 people. The produce is exported to the CIS states, countries of the Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. In 1997 and 1998 the company was awarded with the Diploma "The Best Russian Exporter".
The successful experience of ZEiM was later recommended by the ILO experts for the distribution in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Besides, the ILO Moscow Office also has plans to conduct a number of seminars in the CIS countries on socially responsible restructuring of enterprises with the involvement of ZEiM consultants.
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On November 29, 2002 the International Organization for Migration Office for Russia and the International Labor Organization Moscow Office organized a joint Conference "Labor Markets and Labor Immigration in Russia: Demand, Supply and Reaction of the Accepting Society" in Moscow.
The aim of the Conference was to bring together decision makers from the FMS MIA RF, MOLSP, MFA, President Administration also the representatives from trade unions, employers organizations, research institutions and to start the dialogue between them on the possibilities to improve the working, social and other conditions of legal and illegal migrants, what could be done by each of the partners, what problems and threats could appear in the future. The ILO and the IOM are aware of the migration situation in the Russian Federation and in other countries of the CIS and hope that their joint efforts will make for the drawing up of the migration policy, which will meet the requirements of the international legal norms on migration, human rights and the ILO migration Conventions (No.97 and No.143).
The Conference contained four workshops, which covered the following issues:
Workshop I. "Labor Immigration as a Federal Government Problem". Presentations were made by the representatives of the Employment Service of the Ministry of Labor of RF, Federal Migration Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of RF, Administration of the President of RF and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of RF.
Workshop II. "Labor Markets of Russia: Demand for Migrants and Competition Sectors". Current situation on the Russian labor market and its ability to accept labor migrants, the demand for labor migrants by sectors and regions, the demand for legal and other employment as well as sectors where there would be competition with the Russian population were discussed at the workshop.
Workshop III. "Labor Immigration to Russia: Problems, Consequences and Reaction of the State and Citizens". The participants reviewed the supply of labor migrants, their appropriateness to the Russian labor market; various aspects of the situation with labor immigrants in Russia, including legalization matters; ethnic and other discrimination, influence of these migrants on the Russian society; the attitude to them by the federal authorities (including regional levels), employers and population. The labor flows from the Ukraine and Moldova were discussed separately. In addition to the Russian scientists Moldovan and Ukrainian experts participated in the workshop.
Workshop IV. "Legal Aspects of Labor Immigration into Russia: Russian Legislation and International Norms". Legal problems of labor immigrants to Russia, their influence on Russian society and directions for legislation improvement were debated at the workshop.