Definitive Report - REPORT_NO204, November 1980

1. 92. By a communication dated 5 June 1980, the Arcadia Wage Earners' and Salaried Employees' Centre submitted a complaint of infringement of trade union rights in Greece. The complainant organisation supplied additional information by a letter dated 17 July 1980. The Government sent its reply in a communication dated 4 October 1980.
2. 93. 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. The complainant's allegations

1. 94. In its initial communication, the complainant states that many dismissals have taken place over the past two years at the textile firm of Aegeon, in the district of Astros Kinourias, Department of Arcadia. The complainant explains in this connection that the measures in question are aimed at workers who join trade unions and that all the members of the wage earners' union have been dismissed.
2. 95. The complainant has since forwarded by way of additional information the text of a judgement sentencing the managerial staff of the undertaking to terms of imprisonment for obstructing the formation of a trade union.

B. The Government's reply

1. 96. In its reply the Government states that the Aegeon Company was taken to court over the dismissals it had ordered. By Decision No. 179 of 1979, the Nauplion Court of Summary Jurisdiction sentenced the managerial staff of the company to four months' imprisonment. The text of the judgement shows that this sentence was commuted to a fine. The persons in question have appealed against this sentence.
2. 97. On the other hand, in a case brought by two women employees who had been dismissed, the Nauplion Court of Summary Jurisdiction acquitted the managerial staff of the company (Decision No. 2 of 1980) because, in the opinion of the court, these employees had been dismissed because they had absented themselves repeatedly without justification.
3. 98. The Government appends to its communication the texts of the judgements in both these cases.

C. The Committee's conclusions

1. 99. This case is concerned with the dismissal of trade unionists from a textile firm. It emerges from the information supplied both by the complainant and by the Government that the managerial staff of the firm have been convicted by a court of first instance of obstructing the formation of a trade union by dismissing the members of the organisation in question. The Committee notes this information.