Definitive Report - Report No 6, 1953

Case No 57 (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) - Complaint date: 13-OCT-52 - Closed

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929. The complainant, in a telegram received by the I.L.O on 15 October 1952, alleges that the Guiana Industrial Workers' Union has a majority membership in the sugar industry but is denied recognition by the employers, the latter continuing to recognise a union with a skeleton membership, that the Government is partial in the matter, and that, as a result, wide dissatisfaction is being caused, the sugar workers having called a strike.

930. The Government, in a letter dated 17 December 1952, makes the following observations.
931. Wages and other conditions in the British Guiana sugar industry are regulated by collective bargaining, for which purpose the employers recognise five trade unions for the various categories of workers.
932. The complaining union is a legally registered trade union but is not recognised by the employers, who consider that the general category of workers which it claims to represent is adequately catered for by the five other unions.
933. The Government is not " partial " in the matter ; union recognition in British Guiana is a matter which is settled directly by the parties concerned.

934. The United Kingdom Government has ratified the Right of Association (Non-Metropolitan Territories) Convention (No. 84), 1947, and has undertaken to apply its provisions without modification in respect of British Guiana.
935. Article 3 of Convention No. 84 provides that " all practicable measures shall be taken to assure to trade unions which are representative of the workers concerned the right to conclude collective agreements with employers or employers' organisations ".
936. It would appear that the Government has carried out its obligations under Article 3 of the Right of Association (Non-Metropolitan Territories) Convention by the fact that it has registered the complaining union under the law of the land, thus enabling it to enter freely into collective agreements. In British Guiana the question of actual union recognition by the employers for the purpose of collective bargaining is left to be settled freely by parties concerned and, if it is not settled to the satisfaction of either party, that party may take such action as it wishes, within the law, to oblige the other party to recognise it ; in the present case a strike has been called. Nothing in Article 3 of the Convention places a duty on the Government concerned to enforce collective bargaining by compulsory means which would clearly alter the nature of such bargaining.

937. In these circumstances, the Committee considers that the complainant has not offered sufficient proof that trade union rights have been infringed in the present case and, therefore, recommends the Governing Body to decide that the case does not call for further examination.