Demande directe (CEACR) - adoptée 1995, publiée 82ème session CIT (1995)

The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its report and recalls that its previous comments referred to:

- the requirement to provide a minimum service in the case of strikes in essential public services, on the subject of which any disagreement as to the number of staff and their occupation is settled by the labour authority (section 82 of the Industrial Relations Act); and

- the prohibition placed upon jurisdictional auxiliaries of the Judiciary from forming trade unions (Legislative Decree No. 768, 11th part).

With regard to the first point, the Committee takes due note of the information supplied by the Government that up to the time of the preparation of the report no case had occurred in which the labour authority had intervened in the definition of the minimum service in accordance with section 82 of the Act.

Nevertheless, considering that the establishment of these types of services restricts one of the essential means of pressure available to workers to defend their economic and social interests, the Committee has considered that workers' organizations should be able, if they so wish, to participate in defining such a service, along with employers and the public authorities (see 1994 General Survey on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, paragraph 161).

With regard to the prohibition placed upon jurisdictional auxiliaries from forming organizations, the Committee notes the Government's information that this category of public employees plays a determining role in the procedural aspects and settlement of judicial disputes and that their functions are of the greatest importance in the judicial process, and that they are therefore considered to be equivalent to high-level public servants.

In this respect, "the Committee is of the opinion that to bar these public servants from the right to join trade unions which represent other workers is not necessarily incompatible with freedom of association, but on two conditions, namely that they should be entitled to established their own organizations, and that the legislation should limit this category to persons exercising senior managerial or policy-making responsibilities" (see 1994 General Survey, op. cit. paragraph 57). The Committee requests the Government to inform it whether jurisdictional auxiliaries enjoy the right to organize for the defence of their occupational interests and if it is not the case to modify the legislation consequently.

The Committee once again requests the Government to provide information in its next report on the measures that have been adopted in view of these comments.