Interim Report - Report No 15, 1955

Case No 16 (France) - Complaint date: 30-JUL-51 - Closed

1. 70. At its 124th Session (Geneva, March 1954), the Governing Body, when adopting the Twelfth Report of the Committee on Freedom of Association, approved the recommendations submitted to it by the Committee with respect to several complaints presented by various trade union organisations against the Government of France with regard to the trade union situation in Morocco.
2. 71. In accordance with these recommendations, the Governing Body decided that certain of the allegations formulated in these complaints did not, subject to the observations contained, in particular, in paragraphs 397, 398 and 406 of the Report, call for further examination. With regard to other allegations relating to the non-recognition of certain trade union rights of Moroccan workers, the Governing Body took note of the interim report of the Committee, it being understood that the Committee would report further on the matter when it had received information awaited from the French Government with respect to the introduction of a new trade union régime in Morocco.
3. 72. In a letter dated 16 February 1955, the French Government transmitted the following information to the Director-General.
4. 73. The study of the reform of trade union legislation in Morocco has been actively pursued. The granting of the right to organise to Moroccans is, in fact, one of the elements in the programme of reform which the French Government particularly desires to see applied in Morocco. However, developments in the situation in North Africa have obliged the Government temporarily to postpone the measures contemplated. But it should be remembered that, by reason of the tolerance which the French Government has asked the Resident-General to exercise, Moroccans are able in fact, if not in law, to join the trade unions at present established in Morocco in the same way as Frenchmen. The Government considers that, by being brought into contact with their French comrades in this way, Moroccans may, at the present time, gain experience of a trade union movement devoid of any spirit of xenophobia, pending the legal recognition of their right to organise in the near future.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 74. In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body:
2. (1) to draw the attention of the French Government to the need for promulgating in Morocco legislation ensuring the exercise of full trade union rights by the Moroccan workers, in conformity with the principles laid down in the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87), 1948, including particularly that is, the right to form trade unions, national unions and national centres of their choice, and to elect freely their representatives on the governing bodies of these organisations ;
3. (2) to note the information given by the Government with regard to the freedom accorded in fact to the Moroccan workers to join the trade unions at present established in Morocco and belonging to national centres in the metropolitan country ;
4. (3) to recommend the Government, pending the promulgation of legislation on the question, to accord to Moroccan workers in fact freedom to form trade union organisations of their choice ;
5. (4) to express the wish that it may be kept informed as to the results of the efforts being pursued by the Government with a view to ensuring that Moroccan workers will, as soon as possible, be accorded the right to organise in full freedom ;
6. (5) to consider the question again when the Committee has received further information in this connection from the French Government.