STBIH is a union that is in many ways specific comparing to other unions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the reasons is the cooperation with other civil society organizations in BiH in order to provide better protection and promotion of workers’ rights. STBIH has been cooperating with other civil society organizations since 2009 and we have implemented a number of joint projects and achieved results through that cooperation. Other unions are now shyly opening up to NGOs, although the general issue of “ownership” of workers’ rights is one of the reasons why there is still no comprehensive effective cooperation. This issue has never been a reason for STBIH not to share its experiences and access to its target group on the one hand and to seek help and support from the NGO sector in terms of competencies and knowledge on certain issues that can be useful for workers and ultimately for STBIH membership.
Mersiha Beširović
The best example of this cooperation is the STBIH Para Legal Network (PPM). The project, which STBIH started in 2012 as its pilot project and response to the need for free legal aid to be available to workers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a response to the fact that STBIH operates in a sector where violations of workers’ rights are almost routine and the STBIH itself will never be able to bring together a network of experienced and competent legal experts to adequately respond to the workers’ needs for assistance. Instead, we decided to seek help and support in the NGO sector. With the organization Rights for All, we created the project using their experiences and a tested recipe that we jointly adapted for the needs of STBIH. A key element in this project was the network of legal experts we found in the framework of the organization Vaša prava. STBIH has trained a group of its commissioners who are not lawyers by profession but have learned the law in a more difficult way, directly practicing it in the fight for their own rights and the rights of their colleagues. Each of these PPM members has a contact person in their region with whom they work directly and communicate about the cases they represent. Additionally, we organize annually joint case evaluations and monitoring in a wider circle in which all legal experts and all members of STBIH PPM as well as the management of both organizations. In this way, STBIH realizes one of its most important services to the membership, this is a model that is self-sustainable and cheap for STBIH. The workers received a legal advisor who is available whenever necessary, and I hope that our partner NGO Vaša prava also benefits from this project. BH society received a truly representative database on working conditions not only in this sector but also in 11 other sectors in which this Network has intervened so far. The fact that STBIH PPM had only 44 cases in the first year of the project and in 2020 431 cases tells us how important this service is to the workers themselves. In these 11 years of this project, PPM has had 2559 cases and the percentage of cases resolved in favor of workers is constantly growing. STBIH has records of all interventions so far and these information are important for both organizations.
STBIH generally strives to be a socially responsible organization. We supported the BH Pride March as the only union that pointed out that the fight for freedom is always common and we try to be available to all those who see us as a partner and we believe that only together we can solve all challenges of civil society in BiH.
