Definitive Report - REPORT_NO190, March 1979

1. 19. The Greek Workers' Anti-Dictatorial Front (AEM) filed a complaint and supplied additional information by letters dated 25 February and 4 April 1977. In addition, the AEM, together with the National Trade Union Movement for Workers' Defence (PASKE) and the United Anti-Dictatorial Trade Union Movement (ESAK), presented a joint complaint by a telegram dated 17 April 1977. The ESAK supplied further information and made fresh allegations in communications dated 23 May and 11 June 1977. These various communications were transmitted to the Government, which forwarded its observations in a letter received on 25 August 1977. The ESAK made yet further allegations in a telegram dated 3 April 1978.
2. 20. Greece has ratified both 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).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 21. The Government stated in its reply that under the terms of the ILO Constitution and the fundamental principles governing the functioning of the Organisation, only industrial associations of workers and employers had the right to participate in the ILO's activities. Consequently, it added, only these associations were authorised to file complaints against governments.
2. 22. The Government further declared that there could be no question of its accepting the consideration as receivable of complaints emanating from non-trade union groups with members or representatives holding administrative posts in various trade union organisations.
3. 23. The Committee decided in November 1977 to transmit to the AEM, the ESAK and the PASKE the Government's comments as to the receivability of their complaints and to request the Director-General of the ILO to ask them for additional information relating in particular to the aims and objectives, composition, membership, Constitutions or rules and activities of these organisations, so as to enable the Committee, after examining this information, to determine whether or not they were in fact industrial associations. The Director-General sent a request in these terms to the AEM, the ESAK and the PASKE by letters dated 1 December 1977.
4. 24. The ESAK replied by letters dated 31 December 1977 and 28 February 1978. It sent no further information in answer to the request made to it, but referred to the information supplied in an earlier case, On that occasion the ESAK had stated that it had been founded in 1968 with the object of organising the struggle for the promotion of the interests of the Greek working class and the fight against the dictatorship. After the fall of the dictatorship, the ESAK had continued, its affiliates and its leaders had taken part in trade union elections and also in the congress of the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GGCL). Out of the 35 members of the Executive Committee of the GGCL appointed at the 18th Congress (1011 April 1976), six had been elected from the list submitted by the ESAK. It controlled the executive Committees of hundreds of trade union branches as well as of some of the 45 federations, in particular the most important of these, the Panhellenic Federation of Construction Workers. In short, it had concluded, the ESAK was the most representative group in the Greek trade union movement. The AEM and the PASKE, for their part, did not reply at all.
5. 25. At its May 1978 Session the Committee took the view that it was not in a position to decide whether the complaints were receivable in the absence of adequate information from the complainants concerning their organisations. It accordingly requested the complaining organisations once again to supply before its next session the information requested previously. Since then no communication has been received.
6. 26. Since then the ESAK has sent a communication dated 29 January 1979. After making reference to the information previously supplied, the ESAK indicates that at the last Congress of the Workers' Centre of Athens, of the 1,434 delegates who voted, 455 voted in favour of the democratic opposition. Moreover, according to the ESAK to that number must be added the 700 delegates who had been excluded from the Congress.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 27. The Committee considers that it must in this case determine if the AEM, ESAK and PASKE are professional workers' organisations able to present complaints before the ILO. The information supplied by the ESAK show that the complainants constitute an important part of the Greek trade union movement. On the other hand, the absence of information about their structure and, their objectives does not permit a decision to be made on the professional character of the groups in question. Moreover, the Committee must state that although these groups may assemble the majority of the members of certain trade unions or federations, these, however, are not the complainants in the present case. Moreover, the AEM and the PASKE have not replied to this date.