On  January 27 and 28, in Frankfurt, Germany, the third and final workshop on the European social partners’ project “Social conditions in public transport” was held. Its beginning was the seminar in Sofia, and it is expected to close by a conference in May. The seminar was attended by Nikola Rusatev – the deputy sector representative for public transport in the FTTUB Youth Committee and Mila Nikolova, expert.
Themes of the seminar were the procedures of competitive tendering of public services by the public authorities. An increasing trend was noted. A number of examples from Germany, Netherland, Austria, UK and Italy were presented. They gave an idea of the wide range of possible solutions for the implementation of Directive 1370/2007 in accordance with local conditions. Also in the context of the project research some best practices were outlined such as: knowledge of the market needs; a setup of quality criteria; their clear formulation in the tendering procedure; choice on the principle not of the lowest, but the “best price” (cost / benefit ratio). It must be also noted that even with transfer of staff in most cases social acquisitions after the transfer may decrease, especially in subcontracting and outsourcing. Collective bargaining is an important condition to safeguard them.
The seminar and the participants’ comments will provide for the final report, which will be presented at the closing conference.