Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2000, published 89th ILC session (2001)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Panama (Ratification: 1958)

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

Prohibition of strikes in the Panama Canal zone

The Committee notes that the Organic Act establishing the Panama Canal Authority, adopted in 1997, provides in section 92 thatin order to ensure that the international public service for which the Canal was created, its operation may not be interrupted wholly or in part nor diminished for any reason. Strike action, go-slows and any other unjustified work stoppage is prohibited. In the event of any of the above, the administration of the Authority shall take measures to re-establish the service immediately and shall apply the sanctions set out in the law and in regulations, including dismissal. The Committee also notes Act No. 9 of 1997, by virtue of which all collective agreements shall include a procedure for the lodging of complaints, which shall include the possibility of having recourse to arbitration and alternative means of resolving them. This procedure shall constitute the exclusive administrative machinery for the resolution of disputes (section 104). Furthermore, by virtue of section 111 of the same Act, the Labour Relations Board shall be established, which shall have the functions (section 113) of resolving disputes concerning the scope of negotiations, deadlock in negotiations and denunciations relating to labour practices. The Board shall appoint investigators, facilitators, mediators and arbitrators familiar with the labour system in force in the Central Canal Authority.

The Committee hopes that, within the protection offered by Act No. 9 of 1997, workers who are thus deprived of an essential means of defending their socio-economic and occupational interests (such as strike action), are in practice afforded impartial and rapid compensatory guarantees, for example, conciliation and mediation procedures leading, in the event of deadlock in negotiations, to arbitration machinery seen to be reliable by the parties concerned (see General Survey, 1994, paragraph 164). The Committee requests the Government to provide it with a copy of the above Act so that it can determine the extent to which the various procedures envisaged for the settlement of such disputes comply with the requirements of the Convention. The Committee also requests the Government to provide information on the solutions found in practice to a sample of the disputes which have been referred to such procedures so that it can assess the effectiveness and expeditious nature of the latter.