Suites données aux recommandations du comité et du Conseil d’administration - Rapport No. 329, Novembre 2002

Effect given to the recommendations of the Committee and the Governing Body

1. 45. The Committee last examined this case, which concerns the existence and free functioning of trade union structures of the Gabonese Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CGSL) in the SOCOFI enterprise and the dismissal of trade unionists for exercising their right to strike, at its March 2002 meeting [see 327th Report, paras. 58-60]. On that occasion, the Committee requested the Government to keep it informed of the decision of the Court of Appeal on the legality of the strike launched by the CGSL at the SOCOFI enterprise in 1997.
2. 46. In its communication of 11 September 2002, the Government merely provides some information on issues that are no longer pending in this case, and fails to provide any information concerning the decision of the Court of Appeal on the legality of the 1997 strike at the SOCOFI enterprise.
3. 47. The Committee notes with regret that no new information on the pending issue in this case has been provided by the Government. Therefore, the Committee can only deplore, once again, the fact that more than five years after the strike was launched at the SOCOFI enterprise, the workers who were dismissed for involvement in the strike are still waiting for the Court’s decision. The Committee once again urges the Government to take the necessary measures – if the strike is ruled to have been lawful – to ensure that the workers dismissed for exercising the right to strike are reinstated in their posts without loss of pay or, if this is not possible, that they be compensated. Furthermore, the Committee reminds the Government that justice delayed is justice denied.