Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1991, published 78th ILC session (1991)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Madagascar (Ratification: 1960)

The Committee notes the Government's report and observes that it does not contain information on the question of the right to organise of seafarers or the requisitioning of persons. In these conditions, it once again draws the Government's attention to these points:

Right to organise of seafarers. The Committee reminds the Government that under the terms of the national legislation no provision explicitly recognises the right to organise of these workers even though certain rights relating to the right to organise are recognised by the legislation (the right to conclude collective agreements to determine their wages (section 3.5.03 of the Maritime Code, as amended in 1966), the procedure for the collective settlement of disputes and the right to strike following an arbitration award (Act No. 70-002 of 23 June 1970 respecting individual and collective disputes in the merchant navy and its implementing Order No. 3012-DGTP/SSM of 1970)).

In these circumstances, the Committee once again requests the Government to include a provision in its legislation explicitly to guarantee seafarers the right to organise.

Requisitioning of persons. The Committee points out that the conditions giving rise to the right to requisition persons set out in Act No. 69-15 of 15 December 1969 have too broad a scope to be compatible with the principles of freedom of association. Indeed, sections 20 and 21 of this Act empower the Minister to resort to this procedure when a state of national necessity is proclaimed or in the event of a threat to a sector of economic life in order to safeguard the interests of the nation, whereas requisitioning to bring to an end a strike is only admissible in essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is those whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population, in the case of public servants acting in their capacity as agents of the public authority or in the event of a strike, the extent and duration of which are liable to give rise to an acute national crisis.

The Committee requests the Government to supply information on the cases in which it has requisitioned persons during the period covered by the report and to contemplate amending this provision in order to confine its scope to the situations described above.