Interim Report - REPORT_NO194, June 1979

1. 179. By a letter dated 13 July 1976, the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP) presented a complaint of infringement of trade union rights in St. Vincent. By a letter dated 5 September 1977, the Government of the United Kingdom communicated a preliminary reply from the Government of St. Vincent in which it made certain general observations and announced its readiness to provide more detailed comments, but requested that the complainants' allegations be worded in more precise terms. The additional information supplied by the complaining organisation in a communication dated 10 July 1978 was transmitted to the Government for observations by a letter dated 27 July 1978. No reply has yet been received from the Government in this connection.
2. 180. The United Kingdom has ratified the Right of Association (Non-Metropolitan Territories) Convention, 1947 (No. 84), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98); it has declared their provisions to be applicable to St. Vincent without modification. It has also ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and declared it to be applicable to St. Vincent subject to certain modifications (these relate to the composition of trade union executive Committees, the taking of decisions by secret ballot in certain cases and the use that may be made of trade union funds).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 181. At its November 1978 and February 1979 Sessions, the Committee decided to adjourn its examination of this case pending the receipt of further observations from the Government.
2. 182. In their first communication, the complainants alleged, on the basis of information received from the St. Vincent Union of Teachers (SVUT), that in September 1975 SVUT leaders had been arrested for taking part in a protest march declared to be illegal, that some of them had been detained for three days and that a large number of teachers had been dismissed or transferred to other places of work.
3. 183. In its initial reply, the Government of St. Vincent stated inter alia that if arrests had been made of union members for contravention of the law, this would be a matter for the courts of justice to decide. The question of criminal proceedings was a matter for the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose functions were not directed by the Government. As for the transfer of teachers, this fell within the rules governing the employment of teachers and civil servants and was done to regulate staffing; transfers, added the Government, usually took place at the beginning of every term, and the fact that a person might be a member of a union did not give him a right superior to other employees. Teachers might be dismissed for bad conduct or for any matter inconsistent with their terms of employment. The United Kingdom Government, in transmitting this reply, indicated that the Government of St. Vincent was ready to furnish more detailed observations if the complainants would formulate their allegations in more precise terms, supplying, for instance, the names of the persons concerned, the dates on which the incidents referred to were alleged to have taken place and the provisions of the laws of St. Vincent which it was claimed had been breached.
4. 184. By a letter dated 10 July 1978, the complainants forwarded additional information which had been communicated to them by the St. Vincent Union of Teachers (SVUT). According to this information, since becoming a trade union in 1952, the SVUT, the professional body and union of all teachers, has had to engage in strike action three times - in 1956, 1961 and 1975; on the first two occasions the Government effected transfers; in 1975, the Government responded with transfers and dismissals.
5. 185. According to the SVUT, the strike of 1975, which lasted from 3 November to 2 December, was the culmination of the deterioration in the relations between the SVUT and the Government. On 7 July 1975, the Union's National Executive was directed by a General Meeting to hold discussions with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education on salaries and working conditions, with a view to reaching a settlement. These discussions took place but bore no results. The first term of 1975 commenced in an atmosphere of tension. A further meeting took place with the minister of Education.
6. 186. In September 1975, a General Meeting of the SVUT directed the National Executive to submit formal demands based on the following areas of concern:
   • - Working conditions: the Union demanded, inter alia, the setting up of a Committee of inquiry, to include teachers, to investigate teachers' working conditions and conditions of employment.
   • - Back pay: the Union demanded payment of a cost-of-living allowance which had been promised several months previously.
   • - Salary revision: the last salary revision had taken place in 1970. The revision scheduled for 1975 had not yet been started. An expert had been appointed to review the whole of the public service, and the Union demanded that the period scheduled for this assignment be shortened and that an interim arrangement be made.
   • - Public Service Act of 1971: the Union held that this Act was unconstitutional and undemocratic and that it seriously curtailed the freedom of teachers; it demanded its repeal.
   • - Collective agreement: the Union demanded that the Government consider jointly with the Union the setting up of machinery for negotiating the terms of a collective agreement.
7. 187. Still according to the SVUT, these demands were transmitted to the Government by a letter dated 23 September 1975. The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education replied on 1 October 1975 promising further correspondence "in due course". Seeing that the situation was worsening, the Union appealed to the Labour commissioner to intervene in order to avoid the ultimate step of strike action. The Labour Commissioner replied that the matter would be dealt with "in the normal manner" and "in due course".
8. 188. In protest against the Government's slowness to act, the Union called on its members to boycott the official celebrations in honour of the country's accession to statehood. According to the SVUT, the Government launched attacks on the Union. Attempts to achieve dialogue with the Government having failed, the Union decided to call for industrial action. In a letter to the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, the Union nevertheless reiterated its willingness to hold dialogue.
9. 189. The strike, which began on 3 November 1975, was participated in, according to the SVUT, by about 800 teachers; all schools were affected. Strikers picketed the Ministry of Education and schools that remained open. According to the SVUT, the Government waged a campaign against the Union on the radio and in a newspaper, and brought pressure to bear on strikers through various forms of intimidation, and no attempt was made to meet the teachers, ever through the conciliatory services offered by the Council of Churches.
10. 190. On 13 November 1975, 31 teachers were arrested and some jailed for "obstructing a police officer in the due execution of his duty and assembling at the Ministry of Education for a disorderly purpose". On 14 November, the police broke up a protest march of teachers and their supporters. Permission to hold this march had first been given and then withdrawn. Ten teachers, including members of the Union's National Executive, were arrested and detained for three days. They were charged with knowingly taking part in an illegal procession. The President and Vice-President of the Union were further charged with organising a procession for which no notice had been given. All the accused were subsequently acquitted.
11. 191. Following these events, according to the SVUT, a number of teachers were dismissed and disciplinary procedures were not respected. At a meeting with the Union, the Government stated that it was not legally required to give a reason for the teachers' dismissal. It gave none, except in two cases. Several of these teachers had been teaching for over ten years. The SVUT holds that these teachers were dismissed for their participation in the strike.
12. 192. Copies of several letters of dismissal, dated December 1975, have been supplied by the complainants, who have furnished a detailed list of the teachers affected, who include six national officials of the Union, seven members of the Union and five teachers financially affiliated to the Union working at private schools assisted by the Government. In addition the complainants report some 60 transfers described by them as punitive. The President of the Union's National Executive, Mr. Browne, was transferred in April 1975 to a non-teaching post at the Ministry of Education.
13. 193. As examples of what it describes as wanton transfers, the SVUT also cites the cases of two teachers. Mr. Henry Dasent, suffering from a serious ailment, was forced to travel over the roughest terrain to a locality far from his home. Mr. Malcolm Garrawy was transferred to an island classified as being a hard area where assignments should be limited to two years, although he had already taught there for three years. This involved separation from his family.
14. 194. The complainants claim that the Public Service Act is used to label all trade union actions as political, thus restricting trade union activities. This Act provides, in particular, that no public officer may speak, preside at, or take other prominent part in any public meeting which may reasonably be regarded as political; call a public meeting to consider any action of the Government or actively take part in such a meeting; speak or vote at a public meeting organised by a trade union, the objects of which are wholly or in part political (section 3(1)(e), (f) and (g) of the Act of 1971 respecting the conditions of employment of members of the Public Service). The SVUT further alleges that the Government debars union officials from visiting teachers at the place of work.
15. 195. The SVUT also claims that it is denied the right to a collective agreement, as a result of which salaries are determined solely by the Government and the scheduled dates for their revision are not respected, despite a steep rise in the cost of living.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 196. With regard to the allegations concerning the arrest of a number of officials and members of the SVUT in November 1975, the Committee notes from the additional information supplied by the complaining organisation that these persons were acquitted. In these circumstances, the Committee considers that this aspect of the case does not call for further examination.
2. 197. With regard to the allegations concerning transfers and dismissals following a teachers' strike and to the allegations to the effect that the Government has not replied to the Union's request for negotiations, the Committee considers it necessary, before formulating its conclusions, to have before in the Government's observations on the additional information supplied by the complaining organisation on certain aspects of the case.