Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 2010, publiée 100ème session CIT (2011)

Article 11 of the Convention. Wages as privileged debts. The Committee refers to its comments under the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), with regard to the observations communicated by the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) with the support of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) on the impact of the measures introduced in the framework of the mechanism to support the Greek economy. The GSEE refers to important reductions and cuts in the wages of all workers under private law contracts employed in the public and private sectors and draws specific attention to section 41 of Act No. 3863/2010, by which claims of social security institutions in insolvency proceedings are granted the same rank of privilege as workers’ wage claims. These institutions are now considered equally and proportionally as privileged creditors with regard to their right to be paid out of the liquidated assets of the insolvent employer. According to the GSEE, such preferential treatment of claims of social security institutions does not correspond to the State’s obligation to secure full payment of workers’ claims that derive from their employment, before other ordinary creditors establish any claim to a proportionate share of the employer’s assets. Reference is made, in this respect, to the Protection of Workers’ Claims (Employer’s Insolvency) Convention, 1992 (No. 173), which requires workers’ claims to be given a higher rank of privilege than most other privileged claims, and in particular those of the State and the social security system and which, according to the GSEE, constitutes an international minimum standard that must be respected. In addition, the GSEE refers to section 75 of Act No. 3863/2010, which provides that, upon termination of employment, severance pay may be paid in bi-monthly instalments each corresponding to two months’ wages, and considers that the payment of an amount with such a critical survival function for workers and their families becomes uncertain and precarious. The Committee will examine the comments by the GSEE along with the Government’s reply thereto at its next session.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2011.]