Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2007, published 97th ILC session (2008)

The Committee notes with regret that the Government’s report has not been received. It must therefore repeat its previous observation which read as follows:

The Committee recalls that it has been making comments since 1983 on the Social Policy (Basic Aims and Standards) Convention, 1962 (No. 117), and the present Convention regarding alleged abuses in the payment of wages to agricultural workers. It notes with regret that the Government confined itself in its last report to indicating that there had been no follow-up on the matter raised in the Committee’s previous observations and that investigations had not been carried out on the subject. The Government added that, in the context of its policy, it was seeking, among other aims, to resolve the problems encountered by all salaried workers not covered by the General Labour Act.

In this respect, the Committee notes the study entitled Enganche y Servidumbre por Deudas en Bolivia (“The trap of debt bondage in Bolivia”), prepared in 2004 and published by the Office in January 2005, which reports practices resulting in tens of thousands of indigenous agricultural workers being in a situation of debt bondage, with some of them being subject to conditions of permanent or semi-permanent forced labour. According to this study, the methods used include systems of advances on wages, stores located in camps which charge excessive rates in relation to market prices, compulsory deductions from wages for savings schemes, payments in kind and the deferred payment of wages. These practices are found, in one form or another, in the regions of Santa Cruz and Tarija (sugar cane harvest), in the north of Amazonia (chestnut picking) and in the region of Chaco (work in ranches), with this latter region experiencing the worst cases of forced labour in the Andean region. The Committee also notes that the conclusions and recommendations of this study were validated at a tripartite seminar held in La Paz in August 2004. The recommendations of the study included the ratification of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the formulation of a national plan of action to eradicate and combat forced labour in all its forms. The Committee draws the Government’s attention to the fact that the practices referred to in the study raise problems relating to the application of Article 4 (payment in kind), Article 6 (freedom of the worker to dispose of his or her wages), Article 7 (works stores), Article 8 (deductions from wages) and Article 12 (regular payment of wages) of Convention No. 95. It therefore requests the Government to provide detailed information on the measures adopted for the formulation and implementation of a national plan of action to bring these practices to an end.

The Committee hopes that the Government will make every effort to take the necessary action in the very near future.

The Committee is addressing other points, including the scope of application of the General Labour Act and its extension to agricultural workers, in a request addressed directly to the Government.