Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 1993, publiée 80ème session CIT (1993)

The Committee recalls that for several years its comments have concerned the need to amend section 183 of the Labour Code, which gives the President of the Republic excessive powers to submit an industrial relations dispute to compulsory arbitration in order to bring an end to a strike. The Committee notes that the Government supplies in its report the same information as that contained in a previous report that the procedure set out in section 183 is only put into effect by the President of the Republic in cases concerning a ministerial department and, in other cases, by the Minister of Labour which, according to the Government, restricts the concept of general interest, since the President's intervention is limited to ministerial departments.

In these circumstances, the Committee is bound to recall once again that, irrespective of the authority which refers a dispute to compulsory arbitration, whether it is the President of the Republic or the Minister of Labour, that authority should only be empowered to refer a dispute to arbitration and, by so doing, prohibit or restrict the exercise of strike action in three circumstances: in cases where the strike affects an essential service in the strict sense of the term, that is a service the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population; in cases where the strike is called by public servants acting in their capacity as agents of the public authorities; or in the event of an acute national crisis.

The Committee also notes that the Government states in its report that no progress has been made concerning the amendment to section 183, which had been submitted to the Labour Commission as part of a general reform of the Labour Code, due to the fact that a new commission concerning the Labour Code was established on 26 March 1992 with the Minister of Labour as its president.

The Committee expresses once again the firm hope that the new commission will make every effort to ensure that section 183 of the Labour Code is adopted in the very near future in the version proposed earlier, which was in conformity with the principles of freedom of association, and it requests the Government to indicate any measure which has been taken in this respect in its next report.