Observación (CEACR) - Adopción: 1989, Publicación: 76ª reunión CIT (1989)

The Committee notes the Government's report.

1. For many years the Committee has been pointing out that certain provisions of the national legislation do not sufficiently implement or are not in conformity with the Convention, namely:

- section 34 of Act No. 107 of 1975 concerning trade unions, which provides protection against acts of discrimination for trade union activities during the employment relationship, but not at the time of the recruitment of a worker (Article 1 of the Convention);

- sections 63, 64, 65 and 67 of the Labour Code, which require the clauses of collective agreements to be in conformity with the economic interest (Article 4), whereas, in the Committee's opinion, rather than subjecting the validity of collective agreements to government approval, steps should be taken to persuade the parties to collective bargaining to have regard voluntarily to major economic and social policy considerations of general interest invoked by the Government (see paragraph 318 of the 1983 General Survey on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining).

In its report, the Government indicates once again that proposals have been made to amend these provisions of the national legislation in order to bring them into line with the Convention.

The Committee once again trusts that the necessary measures will be taken in the near future to give effect to the Convention on these points and it requests the Government to supply information on the progress achieved.

2. The Committee notes that the Government's report does not contain any information on a number of points that were raised in its previous observations:

(a) the right to bargain collectively of public servants not engaged in the administration of the State.

The Committee noted that by virtue of Part IV of Decision No. 184 of the General People's Committee of 1983, concerning the organisation of municipalities, the People's Committees of the public service are responsible for the recruitment of workers. The Committee once again requests the Government to indicate whether these provisions apply to public servants other than those acting in their capacity as agents of the public authority whom, by virtue of Article 6, are not covered by the Convention. If this is the case, it requests the Government to indicate the provisions under which the guarantees set out in Articles 1 and 2 and the right to freely negotiate collective agreements as laid down in Article 4 are recognised for public servants who are not engaged in the administration of the State;

(b) the right of agricultural workers and seafarers to bargain collectively.

The Committee has been noting for several years that agricultural workers and seafarers are excluded from the scope of the Labour Code and that seafarers are governed by the Maritime Code. The Committee once again urges the Government to supply a copy of the Maritime Code and of the legislative texts that give agricultural workers and seafarers the right to organise and to bargain collectively their terms and conditions of employment in accordance with the Convention.