Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2015, published 105th ILC session (2016)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Seychelles (Ratification: 1999)

The Committee takes note of the observations submitted by the Association of Seychelles Employers and the Seychelles Federation of Workers’ Unions (SFWU), received on 31 August 2015, which refer to matters already examined by the Committee.

Articles 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the Convention. Pending legislative matters. The Committee recalls that for several years it has been commenting upon and requesting the Government to take measures to amend several provisions of the Industrial Relations Act (IRA) concerning insufficient protection against acts of interference and restrictions on the right to bargain collectively. The Committee welcomes the Government’s indications that: (i) in 2012, the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources Development (MLHRD) established a committee to review the IRA, composed of representatives from the MLHRD, the employers’ and workers’ organizations and other stakeholders from the ministries, departments and a non-governmental organization; (ii) the IRA Committee actively met on four occasions between April and July 2013 during which it proceeded to an analysis of the IRA by order of the sections; and (iii) in relation to section 3 concerning the application of the IRA, the IRA Committee took into account the Committee’s comments and proposed to widen the scope of the IRA so as to encompass prison staff. The Committee further notes that in its report the Government informs that: (i) since the IRA Committee only had a chance to examine sections 1–9, the Committee’s remaining comments regarding the need to take the necessary measures to ensure protection against acts of interference by employers or their organizations into workers’ organizations and the need to restrict the recourse to compulsory arbitration, which concern sections 36–38 and sections 46–53 of the IRA, have not yet been addressed; (ii) the MLHRD contracted a consultancy to review the IRA to ensure its compatibility with the national labour legislation and international labour standards, the main work of which will be undertaken from September 2015 to February 2016, with the validation workshop of the IRA draft scheduled to take place in February 2016; (iii) the terms of reference of the IRA’s consultancy were forwarded to the ILO Country Office in Antananarivo; and (iv) the Committee’s comments will be considered by both the IRA Committee and the IRA consultancy in their review of the legal instrument. The Committee observes that the Government expressed the need for ILO technical assistance and stated that it would forward the IRA draft for the ILO’s comments prior to the validation workshop.

The Committee trusts that the review of the IRA will continue without delay, in consultation with the social partners and with the technical assistance of the ILO, taking into account the Committee’s previous comments in which it had requested the Government to take the necessary measures in order to:

• -adopt legislative provisions providing for protection against acts of interference by employers or their organizations in workers’ organizations, in particular, acts which are designed to promote the establishment of workers’ organizations under the domination or control by employers or employers’ organizations, coupled with effective and sufficiently dissuasive sanctions;
• -amend its legislation so as to ensure that recourse to compulsory arbitration in cases where the parties do not reach an agreement through collective bargaining is permissible only in relation to public servants engaged in the administration of the State (Article 6 of the Convention), essential services in the strict sense of the term and acute national crises; and
• -ensure that prison staff, excluded from the scope of the IRA, are granted the right to bargain collectively.

The Committee requests the Government to provide information on any developments in this respect.