Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 2005, publiée 95ème session CIT (2006)

The Committee notes the Government’s report and the comments of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

Article 4 of the Convention. The Committee has been commenting for many years on the fact that, in order to engage in collective bargaining, a trade union must represent an absolute majority of the workers in an enterprise or the workers in a branch (sections 109 and 110 of the Labour Code). The Committee notes that the Government intends to deal with this matter in the Consultative Committee on Labour and hopes to have the support of the social partners for amending the abovementioned provisions. The Committee expresses the hope that the above amendments will be made in the near future and requests the Government to keep it informed on this matter.

The Committee also notes the statistical information supplied by the Government which it requested at its previous examination, concerning the conclusion of 17 collective labour agreements covering 5,086 workers, seven of which pertain to industry, four to services, two to commerce, one to agriculture and three to export processing zones (one of the three covers the period from January to July 2005 and the other two were deposited in August 2005). The Government also states that the Mediation and Arbitration Directorate intervened in 41 collective labour disputes, 13 of which were settled by formal agreement and three by informal agreement, with 15 agreements still pending. The Committee observes that the Government provides no information on the existence of collective agreements in the public sector. In view of the number of agreements and the coverage of collective bargaining, it requests the Government to take further steps to promote bargaining. It also requests the Government to continue to send statistical information on any collective agreements concluded in the public and private sectors.

Lastly, the Committee notes the Government’s observations on the comments by the ICFTU. The Committee requests the Government to give further details on the comments referring to the absence of effective sanctions for acts of anti-union discrimination, dismissals on trade union grounds of leaders in sugar plantations and blacklists of trade unionists in export processing zones. The Committee brings to the Government’s attention that in case acts of anti-union discrimination are denounced, investigations should take place without delay and if the allegations are confirmed, sufficiently dissuasive sanctions should be imposed.