Definitive Report - Report No 71, 1963

Case No 318 (Morocco) - Complaint date: 05-JAN-63 - Closed

1. 29. The complaint by the National Federation of P.T.T. Workers (U.M.T.) was submitted in a telegram dated 5 January 1963, supplemented by a communication of 19 April of the same year. The text of the telegram was communicated to the Government for its observations by a letter dated 11 January 1963. The Government replied by a communication dated 15 April 1963. The observations contained in this communication answer, as it were, in advance the further information from the complainants dated 19 April 1963. This last has, nevertheless, been transmitted to the Government for any observations it may wish to make.
2. 30. Morocco has ratified the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), but has not ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 31. From the information before the Committee it would seem that disputes, the exact nature of which has not been made clear, have set the National Federation of P.T.T. Workers-a member of the Moroccan Workers' Union (U.M.T.)-against the latter's Central Executive. These disputes are reported to have come to light through the U.M.T. Central Executive's rejection, on the occasion of the Union's Third Congress, of the list of delegates to the Congress submitted by the National Federation of P.T.T. Workers and its attempt to replace this list by another. In the face of the Federation's refusal the U.M.T. Central Executive is reported to have been threatening to dissolve the Federation and to have created, to that end, a temporary caretaker committee for the P.T.T.
2. 32. To judge both from the complaint and from the Government's observations, the situation today is not very clear. On the one hand, the complaining Federation still exists and, according to the Government, the local sections which elect the Federation's management committee have informed the Ministry of P.T.T in writing of their continued confidence in the Federation's present management committee. On the other hand, it would seem that the U.M.T. Central Executive, for its part, has set up new local " splinter " sections.
3. 33. From all the evidence it would seem that this is an internal dispute between the U.M.T. Central Executive and one of its member industrial unions and so, in its reply, the Government states that when asked by the U.M.T to take a stand in the matter it answered that it was not in a position to do so in this purely internal affair.
4. 34. It further appears from the Government's reply that several remedies are available in disputes of this kind which do not seem to have been sought by the parties. These are, on the one hand, the U.M.T. Disputes Committee and, on the other, the courts whose business it is to pronounce on the validity of the exclusions decided upon in cases of disputes concerning elections in associations.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 35. The Committee considers that it is not called upon to express an opinion concerning a matter involving no dispute between the Government and the trade unions, but consisting solely in a conflict within the trade union movement itself, the settlement of such affairs being, in the Committee's opinion, the sole responsibility of the parties themselves.
2. 36. The Committee further notes that national procedures offer the parties means of obtaining settlement-means of which they have not thought fit to avail themselves. When the Committee has been called upon to examine similar situations in the past, it has pointed out that while, in view of the nature of its responsibilities, it cannot consider itself bound by any rule that national procedures of redress must be exhausted, such as applies, for instance, to international claims tribunals, it must have regard in examining the merits of a case to the fact that a national remedy before an independent tribunal whose procedure offers appropriate guarantees has not been pursued.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 37. In all the circumstances, noting on the one hand that this is a purely internal trade union dispute in which the Government has observed strict neutrality and, on the other hand, that the parties, who have refrained from pursuing the remedies provided, have made no real attempt either to establish their case or to obtain redress for the prejudice allegedly sustained, the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that the case does not call for further examination.