Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1989, published 76th ILC session (1989)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Trinidad and Tobago (Ratification: 1963)

For several years now, the Committee has been requesting the Government to take steps to amend its labour legislation to bring it in line with the Convention. Provisions in breach with the Convention have been thoroughly documented in numerous comments of the Committee, as far back as 1969 in some instances. In its 1988 observation, the Committee reiterated the need to:

- amend provisions that afford a privileged position to registered associations, without providing objective and pre-established criteria for determining the most representative association (sections 24(3) of the Civil Service Act, 28 of the Fire Service Act and 26 of the Prison Service Act);

- amend section 59(4)(a) of the Industrial Relations Act, as amended in 1978, so as to enable a simple majority of the voters in a bargaining unit (excluding those workers not taking part in the vote) to call a strike;

- amend section 65 of the same Act to ensure that any resort to the Court by the Ministry of Labour to end a strike is limited to cases of strikes in essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is to say, those in which the strike would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population, or in cases of acute national crisis.

The Committee notes the adoption in 1987 of an amendment to section 61 of the Industrial Relations Act under which one party may now request the Minister, when a period of three months of continuing industrial action has elapsed, to refer an unresolved dispute to the Court for final determination. The Committee must point out that binding arbitration procedures, whether or not preceded by conciliation, must be designed to facilitate bargaining between the two sides, which means that it should be for the two parties to decide whether or not they wish to refer any matter in dispute to binding arbitration. Moreover, since this new provision entails the prohibition of recourse to strikes, the Committee insists that such prohibitions of strikes should be confined to: (a) public servants acting in their capacity as agents of the public authority; (b) services whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population; or (c) situations of acute national crisis.

The Committee also notes that the Government is still carefully considering the implications of amendments to sections 59(4) and 65 of the Industrial Relations Act, that it has appointed a high-level review committee to undertake a global review of all the Service Acts and regulations and pledged to keep it informed of developments in this matter. The Committee therefore requests the Government to indicate:

- the exact terms of reference of the review committee;

- whether a timetable and a deadline have been set for the submission of its report; and

- whether employers' and workers' organisations will have an opportunity to submit representations to that committee.

The Committee strongly hopes this latest initiative will be followed in the near future by implementing legislation along the lines it has been suggesting for many years and urges the Government to indicate in its next report the measures taken to bring its legislation into conformity with the Convention.