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The Committee notes with regret that it has not received the Government’s report. It also notes the comments made by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), dated 29 August 2008, which relate to matters already raised by the Committee. Furthermore, the ITUC reports assaults, by the security forces, on demonstrators and strikers, as a result of which around 40 people died and nearly 300 others were injured, arrests of trade unionists and the destruction of the headquarters of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea (CNTG). The Committee recalls that a climate of violence in which murders and disappearances of trade union leaders go unpunished, constitutes a serious obstacle to the exercise of trade union rights and that such acts require severe measures to be taken by the authorities. When disorders have occurred involving loss of human life or serious injury, the setting up of an independent judicial inquiry is a particularly appropriate method of fully ascertaining the facts, determining responsibilities, punishing those responsible and preventing the repetition of such acts (see 1994 General Survey on freedom of association and collective bargaining, paragraph 29). The Committee requests the Government to provide its observations in this regard, as well as on the comments made by the ITUC in 2007.

The Committee recalls that in its previous comments the Committee raised a number of points about the national legislation as follows:

–           the need for measures to set up an independent body that has the trust of the parties and is able to rule promptly on difficulties encountered in defining the minimum service where the parties are unable to agree as to the minimum service in transport and communications (which are not deemed essential in the strict sense of the term); and

–           the need for measures to ensure that compulsory arbitration (established in sections 342, 350 and 351 of the Labour Code) is restricted to cases where the two parties agree to request it, in essential services in the strict sense of the term, or in the event of acute national crisis.

The Committee trusts that the Government will take the measures requested very shortly, in consultation with the representative organizations of employers and workers concerned, and asks it inform it of any developments in the situation.

The Committee reminds the Government that it may seek technical assistance from the Office.