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

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Rwanda (Ratification: 1988)

The Committee takes note of the Government's first report:

Article 1 of the Convention. The Committee notes that there are no specific provisions in the Labour Code guaranteeing observance of this provision of the Convention, and therefore draws the Government's attention to the need to ensure that workers, including agricultural workers, enjoy adequate protection against all acts of anti-union discrimination on the part of employers, both at the time of taking up employment and during the employment relationship, accompanied by sufficiently effective and dissuasive sanctions.

Article 4. The Committee notes the Government's statement that it has not been possible to adopt measures to promote the voluntary negotiation of collective agreements as the employers' organisation has been in the process of being restructured for several years.

The Committee points out that in circumstances such as this, alternative measures, even of temporary nature, should be taken until the problem of the employers' organisation is resolved.

Accordingly, the Committee trusts that the Government will be able to envisage the adoption of measures to promote the development of machinery for voluntary negotiation of collective agreements between employers and the organisations of workers covered by the Convention i.e. both private and public sector workers, with the exception only of public employees engaged in the administration of the State, with a view to the regulation of their terms and conditions of employment by means of such agreements. The Committee asks the Government to provide information on current practice with regard to collective bargaining in the agricultural sector and to state whether collective agreements are being concluded at enterprise level and, if so, to indicate the number of workers whose conditions of employment are regulated by means of such agreements.