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The Committee notes that no report has been received from the Government. The Committee notes the observations of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) of 10 August 2006, which refer to issues that have already been examined and a number of acts of anti-union discrimination in the textile sector. The Committee asks the Government to send its comments on these observations.

The Committee also notes the report of the high-level mission that visited Swaziland from 21 to 27 June 2006 at the request of the Conference Committee on the Application of Standards in 2005 within the framework of the examination of the application of Convention No. 87.

The Committee recalls that in its previous comments it referred to the following points:

–           the need to adopt specific provisions accompanied by sufficiently effective and dissuasive sanctions for the protection of workers’ organizations against acts of interference by employers or their organizations, as required pursuant to Article 2 of the Convention; and

–           the need to adopt a specific legislative provision so as to ensure that if no union covers more than 50 per cent of the workers, collective bargaining rights are granted to the unions in the unit, at least on behalf of their own members (Article 6 of the Convention).

In this respect, the Committee notes with interest that, at the suggestion of the high-level mission, the Government and the social partners signed an agreement by which they undertake to establish, within the framework of the High-level Executive Committee on Social Dialogue formed in 2005, a special tripartite advisory committee to make recommendations to the competent authorities in order to eliminate the existing discrepancies between the legislation and the Articles of the Convention. The Committee also notes that the aforementioned agreement provides that the subcommittee shall begin work quickly and that it shall communicate a progress report to the ILO by the end of April 2007. The Committee hopes that this legislation will be brought into line with the requirements of the Convention and asks the Government to provide information on any developments in this regard in its next report.