Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2003, published 92nd ILC session (2004)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Azerbaijan (Ratification: 1992)

The Committee notes the Government’s report.

The Committee notes that with the entry into force of the Labour Code of 1999, the law on collective contracts and agreements, the law on individual employment contracts and the law on the settlement of disputes are repealed.

In its previous direct request, the Committee observed that section 36 of the Labour Code stipulated that collective agreements, concluded at a higher level than the enterprise, would be executed between relevant authorities, trade unions and employers’ organizations and requested the Government to indicate the reasons for the participation of the authorities in the conclusion of general, industrial and territorial collective agreements and to supply further information on the application in practice of the current bargaining system. The Committee notes the information provided by the Government in this respect, according to which, until recently, general collective agreements were concluded between the two parties (the Cabinet of Ministers and the Confederation of Trade Unions), since the representative bodies of the employers were not duly established and organized. However, since June 2001 the National Confederation of the Organizations of Entrepreneurs (Employers) is an equal partner in the process of conclusion of the general collective agreement. The Committee notes that the Labour Code makes a distinction between a "collective contract", concluded following bipartite negotiations between workers and employers, and a "collective agreement" which allows for bipartite negotiations between workers and authorities and tripartite negotiations in some cases. The Committee requests the Government to explain the difference between the two notions by clarifying the particular purpose and the objectives of each instrument and to indicate the reasons for the participation of the authorities in the conclusion of "collective agreements". The Committee recalls in this respect that, in line with the Convention, free and voluntary collective bargaining should be conducted between workers’ organizations and an employer or an employers’ organization.