On June 11, 2022, the 110th session of the International Labour Conference /ILC/, the first hybrid conference in the history of the International Labour Organisation /ILO/, ended successfully. More than 4,000 delegates representing governments, workers' and employers' organisations from 177 ILO Member States participated in the 110th session of the ILC.

Bulgaria participated in the Conference with a 21-member tripartite national delegation, led by Zhulieta Varlyakova, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy of the Republic of Bulgaria. Representatives of Bulgaria took an active part in the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards /CAS/, the Standard-Setting Committee on Apprenticeships, the Recurrent Discussion Committee on the Strategic Objective of Employment, the General Discussion Committee on Decent Work and the Social and Solidarity Economy, and the General Affairs Committee.

Following a vote on 6 June 2022, the ILC adopted by a large majority eight proposals for amendments to the Code of the Maritime Labour Convention of 2006 which aim to improve the working and living conditions of seafarers. Bulgaria also supported the adoption of the amendments.

The report of the Director-General of the ILO, Guy Ryder, entitled "The Least Developed Countries: Crisis, Structural Transformation and the Future of Work" was discussed during the plenary sessions on 6-9 June 2022. In addition to the Head of the national delegation, Deputy Minister Varlyakova, speeches were also made by the delegates of the Bulgarian workers and the Bulgarian employers.

In his speech, the delegate of Bulgarian workers, Dimitar Manolov, President of Labour Confederation “Podkrepa”, stressed that the new challenges require decisive steps to strengthen labour rights and that workers should be empowered and have real opportunities to unite and bargain collectively. He added that rising inflation must be offset by higher than planned wages and further called for compliance with ratified ILO conventions.

The delegate of Bulgarian employers Maria Mincheva, Deputy Chairman of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce /BIA/, focused on prioritizing sustainable growth based on promoting entrepreneurship, favourable business environment and sustainable private enterprises that can create productive employment and decent work. She emphasized that there could be no social dimension without a sound economic foundation and identified the promotion of productivity, flexible forms of work and workforce skills development as key challenges for employers.

On June 10, 2022, the 110th session of the ILC adopted a historic resolution on the inclusion of a requirement to ensure safe and healthy working environment among the basic principles and rights at work and identified as fundamental ILO Convention 155 on occupational safety and health and ILO Convention 187 on the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health. All ILO Member States are committed to respecting and promoting the fundamental principles and rights at work, whether or not they have ratified the relevant conventions.

The Conference also adopted the conclusions of the ILO Standard-Setting Committee on the development of a new ILO Recommendation on quality apprenticeships, which is expected to provide guidelines for promoting apprenticeships and ensuring adequate protection for apprentices. The Committee's conclusions on the general discussion on decent work and the social and solidarity economy were also adopted.

On 11 June 2022, the 110th session of the ICC concluded successfully with the adoption of the conclusions of the Committee on the Recurrent Discussion on the Strategic Objective of Employment, which provide guidelines for developing coherent, comprehensive and integrated employment policies and decent work opportunities. The Committee Vice-Chairperson from the Workers was Plamen Dimitrov, Chairman of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria /CITUB/ and Deputy Delegate of the Bulgarian Workers. In his closing remarks, Plamen Dimitrov highlighted the agreement reached by the ILO to conduct research and assessments in connection with the development of a definition of living wages, which is an important prerequisite for achieving higher social justice with relation to wages.

The final plenary session also approved the report of the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards /CAS/ – a core supervisory body of the ILO’s standards’ system.

The 110th session of the ILC paid tribute to the current Director-General of the ILO, Guy Ryder, whose second term ends in October 2022. Workers, employers and governments thanked Guy Ryder for his great contribution to the work of the ILO, for his efforts to strengthen social dialogue and ILO‘s leading role within the UN system for guaranteeing decent work. The Director-General elect of the organisation, Gilbert Houngbo, was also wished success.