Definitive Report - REPORT_NO168, November 1977

1. 81. The complaint of the Democratic Independent Union is contained in a letter dated 25 October 1976. The complainants supplied further information in a letter dated 18 December 1976. The Government transmitted its observations in a letter dated 5 April 1977.
2. 82. The Government of the United Kingdom has ratified the Right of Association (Non-Metropolitan Territories) Convention, 1947 (No. 84), the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), and has declared these Conventions to be applicable without modification to Belize.

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 83. The complainants alleged that in August 1975 or thereabouts they had submitted the draft of a proposed collective agreement to the Water and Sewerage Authority, but that the latter had delayed the holding of any meeting for some months. In the meantime, members of the union had been approached to join the Public Officers' Union. About ten of them decided to do so, at the instigation of a supervisor who had apparently instilled fear into them. Similar approaches were said to have been made in other districts. The Union had, therefore, written to the Minister requesting him to conduct a poll to determine the Union's representativity. After some demurring as to the need for such a poll, added the Democratic Independent Union, a poll was conducted on 30 August 1976 and the result was in its favour.
2. 84. Since then, continued the Union, the Authority had been using delaying tactics to avoid a meeting with the Union around the bargaining table. It appeared that the Authority did not have any intention to negotiate and was attempting to protract the matter so as to discourage the workers. Furthermore, according to the complainants, unfair practices were becoming rampant in the country. They cited the case of a garment firm and two of its factories whose women employees were forbidden to join any union. The complainants also expressed their regret that there was no provision in the law to force employers to go to the bargaining table, and stated that the General Workers' Democratic Union was facing the same problems in dealing with the firm of Bowen and Bowen; the situation there was said to be even worse in that the majority of the employees had been laid off and new ones hired.
3. 85. However, in its second communication dated 18 December 1976, the Democratic Independent Union stated that the dispute between it and the Water and Sewerage Authority had been settled, and that a collective agreement had been negotiated on 4 December and signed shortly afterwards.
4. 86. In its letter of 5 April 1977 the Government denied the complainants' allegations and confirmed that a collective agreement had been signed on 9 December 1976. It categorically denied that it had ever forbidden, or even discouraged, workers from joining a union. The Government reiterated its adherence to the principles set out in Conventions Nos. 84, 87 and 98. On the matter of the dispute between the General Workers' Development Union and the Belize Brewing Company Ltd. (referred to by the complainants as Bowen and Bowen), the Government stated that the Minister of Labour had set up a board of inquiry which was currently in session, and added that the Government would take action as recommended by the board when the board's report was received.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 87. The Committee has often drawn attention, inter alia in other cases relating to Belize, to the importance it attaches to the standards embodied in Article 1 of Convention No. 98, which provides that workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment, and that such protection shall apply more particularly in respect of acts calculated to (a) make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership; (b) cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours.
2. 88. The Committee has also laid stress in the abovementioned cases' on the principle that employers should recognise, for the purposes of collective bargaining, organisations that are representative of the workers, adding that in cases where the authorities have the power to hold polls for determining the majority union which is to represent the workers for the purposes of collective bargaining, such polls should always be held in cases where there are doubts as to which union the workers wish to represent them.