A WORD OF INTRODUCTION

The Independent Trade Union of workers in agriculture, food, tobacco industry, water management, commerce, catering and tourism s in Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in May 1990 and has been active in the society of Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than twenty years. The Trade Union of PPDIVUT B&H began its activity in 1990 following the transformation of Trade Union organized solely on territorial principle, dating from 1907 – 1909.
Current work and actions of this Trade Union are still burdened with great problems which occurred:

1. as a consequence of the war and
2. as a consequence of miss-managed privatization and transition of the overall society in the period of expanding globalization for which the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet been prepared.

The past period hardship, burdened with four-year war and aggression on B&H required exceptional efforts for this Trade Union organization to survive and resist to all difficulties caused by unprecedented war devastation and post-war period when it was necessary to gather the members again and build the TradeUnion on new foundations. The staff of PPDIVUT did not give in even in this period. On the contrary, along with workers from agriculture, food and tobacco industries, our Trade Union family was already in 1996 joined by workers employed in sectors of catering and tourism, as well as workers from some segments of commerce.
Employees from other sectors every day knock on the door of PPDIVUT Trade Union family since they are drawn to us by the power and conduct of our trade unionist fight in these difficult times. We represent the Trade Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, PPDIVUT is therefore expanding its activity and organization on the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in spite of countless problems in that sphere and as an interest-oriented organization of workers we have been specially persistent and steadfast.
The family of PPDIVUT Trade Union family counts a large number of trade union organizations whose membership accounts for 40 % of workers employed in these branches. Unfortunately there is still a great difference in the membership number and their capacity to financially support their trade union actions since many companies, due to extremely difficult economic conditions, delay or completely stop paying up the workers, and only one third of workers are able to pay their trade union membership fee.
Despite these hardships, we are still advancing, together because “together we are stronger” – and this has been confirmed by numerous actions and activities of the trade union. We also play an important role in building partnerships with governments and employers.
We deal with all the issues from the domain of trade union activity focusing on internal organization and protecting members' labour rights and the employment status as well as in the process of privatization, collective negotiations and collective agreements, electing the members of workers’ council and improving their work, developing and improving partnerships with social partners on equal basis, participating in the process of adoption of laws relating to working and legal status of workers as well as follow up of all laws pertaining to sectors covered by this Trade Union, along with enhancing the cooperation with other trade unions, associations and, finally, education and information of the trade union membership and specialized trade union publishing activity.
Collective negotiations and appointing employees' councils are the instruments of this trade union for ensuring labour rights of the workers. Thus, up to now 70 individual collective agreements have been signed, which represents a considerably greater economic and legal security to members of this Trade Union. The security level is increasing with each new collective agreement.
Similarly, in terms of ensuring the rights and interest of workers, this Trade Union has started a process of appointing employees' councils and thus enabling workers to participate in the management although they are not shareholders in their economic associations..
Taking into account the specific needs of the young and women that require special activities, Independent Trade Union of PPDIVUT B&H was the first to establish Section for the young and Section for women in B&H. These sections act in accordance with special program documents designed for specific activities.
We are members of the world trade union organization IUF – IUTA – IUL (International Union for Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers'  Associations), as well as European Trade Union Organization EFFAT (European Federation of Trade Unions in Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors and allied branches) and recently we became one of co-founders of Euro Asian Federation of Trade Unions which established in Sarajevo a branch for Balkans with Dr Mehmed Avdagić as Vice-President and Secretary for Balkans.
We would like you to get to know us better so that you can become a member of our family so we can establish wide cooperation for which we remain open to all associations in the process of democratization of the society in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as to all interested international trade unions and other organizations willing to help in this respect.
Welcome to pages of PPDIVUT Trade Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Chairman
Dr Mehmed Avdagić