Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2019, published 109th ILC session (2021)

Repetition

Article 3 of the Convention. Right of workers’ and employers’ organizations to organize their administration and activities. In its previous comments, the Committee drew the Government’s attention to the need to take measures to amend the following provisions of Act No. 008/PR/007, of 9 May 2007, regulating the exercise of the right to strike in public services.

• – section 11(3) of the Act, which imposes the obligation to declare the “possible” duration of a strike (the Committee recalls that trade unions should be able to call strikes of unlimited duration if they so wish); and
• – sections 20 and 21 of the Act, under which the public authorities have discretion to determine the minimum services and the number of officials and employees who will ensure their maintenance in the event of a strike in the services enumerated in section 19. In this regard, the Committee notes the conclusions and recommendation of the Committee on Freedom of Association in Case No. 3004 (see 375th Report), which emphasized the need to amend Act No. 008/PR/007 to ensure the determination of a minimum service in accordance with the principles of freedom of association and requested the Government to provide detailed information to the Committee of Experts. The Committee notes with regret that the Government confines itself in its report to indicating extremely briefly that measures have been adopted to take into account the Committee’s comments. In the absence of information from the Government, the Committee recalls that the maintenance of minimum services in the event of a strike should only be possible in certain situations, namely: (i) in services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole of part of the population (or essential services “in the strict sense of the term”); (ii) in services which are not essential in the strict sense of the term, but in which strikes of a certain magnitude and duration could cause an acute crisis threatening the normal conditions of existence of the population; or (iii) in public services of fundamental importance. Such a minimum service should meet at least two requirements: (i) it must genuinely and exclusively be a minimum service, that is one which is limited to the operations which are strictly necessary to meet the basic needs of the population or the minimum requirements of the service, while maintaining the effectiveness of the pressure brought to bear; and (ii) since this system restricts one of the essential means of pressure available to workers to defend their economic and social interests, their organizations should be able, if they so wish, to participate in defining such a service, along with employers and the public authorities (see the 2012 General Survey on the fundamental Conventions, paragraphs 136 and 137).

The Committee trusts that the Government will make every effort to adopt the necessary measures in the near future with a view to amending Act No. 008/PR/007 of 9 May 2007 in accordance with the principles recalled above.