Informe definitivo - Informe núm. 139, 1974

1. 17. The last time the Committee considered this case was at its 63rd Session in February 1973, on which occasion it submitted an interim report to the Governing Body (135th Report, paragraphs 196 to 210).
2. 18. The Government of the United Kingdom has ratified the Right of Association (Non-Metropolitan Territories) Convention, 1947 (No. 84), the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), and has declared these Conventions to be applicable without modification to British Honduras.

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 19. At its 63rd Session, the Committee recommended the Governing Body, as regards the allegations made about trade union representation for the purpose of collective bargaining in the Citrus Company, to confirm the conclusion it had already reached, namely that in this particular instance the workers had had no opportunity to decide which union should represent them in collective bargaining, and to express its regret that the Government had not seen fit to do something about a state of affairs which hampered the development of collective bargaining and jeopardised the workers' right to organise. Further, the Committee recommended that the Governing Body make urgent approaches to the Government, urging it to ascertain which was the majority union within the Citrus Company when the collective agreement then in force expired, and that the Governing Body should ask to be kept informed about the action taken in this regard.
2. 20. The complainants made a subsidiary allegation, to the effect that workers had been dismissed on the occasion of a strike in October 1971. In this connection, the Committee felt that the statements made by the Government and complainants were contradictory and felt that the latter might usefully be asked to comment on what the Government had to say on this particular point. Accordingly, it decided to ask the complainants for their comments.
3. 21. These conclusions were brought to the notice of Government and complainants alike. In a communication dated 22 March 1973, the complainants supplied some further observations, and the Government commented on these observations in a letter dated 25 May 1973.
4. 22. As regards the matter alluded to in paragraph 19 above, the Government replied that it had taken note of the Governing Body's wish to be kept informed of action taken to ascertain which was the majority union within the Citrus Company once the current collective agreement expired. The Committee takes due note of this statement.
5. 23. As regards the allegation referred to in paragraph 20, i.e. the dismissal without severance pay of a significant number of strikers, amongst whom many had considerable seniority, despite the support given to their cause by the Democratic Independent Union (DIU), the Committee took note in paragraph 208 of its 135th Report of the Government's assurances that it had no knowledge of any representations made by the DIU in this connection, or of any dismissals resulting from the strike. As regards this point, the complainants in their last communication provide the following information: most of the strikers had in fact been dismissed, their seniority with the company ranged from three days to thirty-five years; the complainants had brought these facts to the attention of the company and the Government and, more especially, had called for the payment of a severance allowance to a very senior worker, Louis Morgan; over the telephone, the complainants had made representations to the Labour Commissioner about these dismissals and had been told by him that the Minister of Labour had forbidden him to intervene, this latter statement being confirmed in a letter to the complainants dated 7 February 1972.
6. 24. The Government, in its communication dated 25 May 1973, declares that according to the Citrus Company nineteen workers (out of 1,500 strikers, according to the President of the DIU) had been sentenced by the courts for violence and vandalism, and had not been reinstated for this reason. Some of them had a high degree of seniority in the employment of the company. The Government had found no trace of any information supplied to it about such dismissals, nor could it comment on what had passed over the telephone between the President of the DIU and the Labour Commissioner. The company, says the Government, had entered into no agreement concerning severance pay; Louis Morgan had been a seasonal worker (i.e. a labourer), had not been victimised as a result of the strike and has in fact been employed as a "gate officer" with the company since March 1972.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 25. The Committee wishes to stress the importance it attaches to the principles enunciated in Convention no. 98, Article 1, i.e. that workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment, such protection applying more particularly in respect of acts calculated to: (a) make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership; (b) cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours.
2. 26. From the Government's reply it appears that the nineteen strikers not reinstated were so treated because of violence and vandalism for which they had been sentenced by the courts.