Interim Report - Report No 286, March 1993

1. 426. The complaint is contained in a communication from the Federation of Bank Employees of Peru (FEB) dated 22 October 1992. The Government sent its observations in a communication dated 16 November 1992.
2. 427. Peru has ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. The complainant's allegations

1. 428. In its communication of 22 October 1992, the Federation of Bank Employees of Peru (FEB) alleges that a programme of staff reductions, the purpose of which is to weaken the FEB, has been implemented in the public banking sector. Under the programme, staff members receive personal letters inviting them to take financially rewarded voluntary retirement and warning that those who fail to retire will be declared as surplus to requirements, and dismissed with no financial reward. The aim of this is (i) to facilitate the sale of the commercial state banking network (six state enterprises subject to private law) to the wholly private sector, at the same time ensuring that no FEB leaders or members remain; and (ii) to merge four state enterprises that are subject to private law into a single bank, while ensuring a drastic reduction in the number of FEB leaders and members. This situation stems from the fact that all FEB leaders are permanently released from work under the terms of a collective agreement, and that the FEB, through collective bargaining, has achieved significant benefits that have raised the standing of bank employees.
2. 429. The FEB adds that this programme of staff reductions, based on decrees and administrative resolutions, has already led to the retirement from numerous banks of thousands of workers, including trade union leaders (in many cases all of them, as has occurred at the Banco Popular del Perú) and FEB members. In some cases, moreover, new staff are subsequently recruited, for example at the Banco Minero del Perú, where acceptance of the voluntary retirement of 60 staff members was followed by the recruitment of 40 new staff members, on condition that they do not join FEB organizations.

B. The Government's reply

1. 430. The Government states in its communication dated 16 November 1992 that the regulations drawn up within the framework of the programme to rationalize human resources in a number of public banking concerns, under which financial incentives are used to encourage voluntary retirement, were adopted under the provisions of article 211(20) of the Political Constitution of Peru. They are therefore of a special and temporary nature and relate to measures which do not diminish labour rights and which, as part of the process of rationalizing the state system, have permitted the transfer to the private sector of institutions, organizations and enterprises, including those of the banking system, which cannot remain within the public sector owing to the heavy economic burden they place upon the State, and which, in addition to their manifest inefficiency, were characterized by overstaffing.
2. 431. The Government adds that the regulations adopted during the process of rationalizing human resources in banking institutions do not represent an obstacle to Peru's trade union movement, since they contain nothing which opposes the exercise of trade union rights. On the contrary, they are in line with national legislation in so far as freedom of association is concerned.
3. 432. For these reasons, the Government rejects the allegations of the Federation of Bank Employees, since the above-mentioned regulations have not been used to force workers to retire. On the contrary, the workers in question have had the choice either of taking voluntary retirement or undergoing an evaluation of their work record and professional abilities.

C. The Committee's conclusions

1. 433. The Committee observes that the present case relates to the consequences, from a trade union and labour-related point of view, of the rationalization process that is under way in Peru's public banking sector, under which financially rewarded voluntary retirement is offered on an individual basis to bank employees, those who do not accept that offer having to undergo an evaluation of their work record and professional abilities. The Government has stated that the rationalization process was introduced in response to heavy financial burdens on the State, to inefficiency and to overstaffing. However, the complainant organization has alleged that the purpose of the measures taken by the Government is to weaken the Federation of Bank Employees, to remove its leaders and members and to eliminate the benefits achieved through collective bargaining.
2. 434. The Committee points out first that under its mandate it is required to examine allegations concerning the violation of trade union rights; therefore it can take up allegations concerning economic rationalization programmes and processes - whether or not they imply redundancies or the transfer of enterprises or services from the public to the private sector - only insofar as they might have given rise to acts of discrimination or interference against trade unions. In the present case the only specific allegation - to which the Government has not replied - that could imply an act of anti-union discrimination concerns the recruitment by the Banco Minero del Perú, following the acceptance by 60 of its existing staff members of voluntary retirement, of 40 new staff members, on condition that they do not join the FEB. On the other hand, the other allegations relating to the more or less high percentages of trade union leaders or members whose interests have suffered as a result of the rationalization and staff reduction processes do not in themselves, given their global nature, serve to characterize those processes as anti-union.
3. 435. In these circumstances, the Committee can only regret that the rationalization and staff reduction process in the public banking sector did not involve any consultations or attempts to reach an agreement with the trade union organizations, the preference having been to proceed by decree and ministerial resolution. The Committee requests the Government to undertake such consultations as any new reductions of personnel occur.
4. 436. The Committee considers that the recruitment of 40 new staff members on condition that they do not join the FEB, which followed the acceptance by 60 of the bank's existing staff members of voluntary retirement under the terms of a staff rationalization and reorganization programme, appears to constitute an act of anti-union discrimination. It requests the Government to supply its comments on this allegation.