Interim Report - Report No 78, 1965

Case No 379 (Costa Rica) - Complaint date: 27-FEB-64 - Closed

1. 225. The Committee examined this case at its previous session in June 1964 and made an interim report which appears in paragraphs 368-380 of its 76th Report adopted by the Governing Body at its 159th Session (June-July 1964).

226. The allegations concerning the intervention of the authorities at trade union meetings remained pending at that time. The Golfito Workers' Union alleged in its communication of 27 February 1964 that the fiscal authorities had attempted to interfere with workers' meetings in the Coto Valley at which petitions were discussed and signed. This is alleged specifically to have occurred at plantations 62 and 63.

1. 227. The Government had made no reference to these allegations in its reply, whereupon the Committee recommended the Governing Body, in paragraph 380 of the abovementioned report:
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3. (b) with regard to the allegations concerning intervention in trade union meetings, to request the Government to be good enough to furnish its observations and to decide in the meantime to postpone examination of this aspect of the case.
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5. These conclusions were communicated to the Government by letter of 25 June 1964.
6. 228. On 16 June 1964 the General Confederation of Costa Rican Workers sent a communication in which it transcribed a telegram from the Inspector-General of Finance to the sub-inspectorate at Palmar Sur in the Pacific banana zone as follows:
7. Conformity instructions sent by President of Republic using statutory powers, labour unions may not hold meetings on Banana Company property without previous consent of Company. The complainant adds that in a specific case a court of law had made it clear that there is no infringement of private property (in this case, belonging to the Banana Company) if a union leader holds a meeting with a group of workers in the house where he lives. Having regard to this decision, the complainant continues, the Company had been unable to prevent such meetings, but it had taken reprisals by dismissing the workers who allowed them to be held at their homes; with the new instructions the Banana Company now had the support of the authorities in preventing trade union meetings from being held on Company property, which amounted to abolishing the right to organise in the banana zones.
8. 229. On 19 June 1964 the Costa Rican Workers' Confederation " Rerum Novarum " sent a communication in which it states that the Union of Workers of the Costa Rica Banana Company (SITRACOBA)-an affiliate of the Confederation-is being persecuted by the Company with the aid of the police authorities. Referring to the same instructions as are mentioned in the previous paragraph the complainant maintains that trade union meetings on Banana Company property are prohibited.
9. 230. This complainant makes a number of specific statements in support of its allegation, as follows: Mr. Frank Lyons, representative for Latin America of the International Federation of Plantation, Agricultural and Allied Workers, and the trade unionists Héctor Solano Vallecillo, Virgilio Ramirez Enríquez, Climaco Sandi and Salustiano Méndez Picado were holding an informal meeting at plantation 7 in the district of Palmar Sur, talking with banana workers and giving advice on the establishment of a union, when the authorities made them break up the meeting by order of the Banana Company. On 20 September 1963 the same occurred on plantations 3 and 4 in Palmar Sur. On 9 May 1964, when a trade union meeting was being held in a dwelling-house in the public area of the port of Golfito, the authorities set a watch on the house in accordance with instructions given to them by the Company, which had introduced two administrative employees into the house in order to make a list of the persons present. On 13 June 1964, when a group of workers and officers of SITRACOBA had met at plantation 8 in the district of Palmar Sur, they were compelled by the authorities to break up the meeting; the authorities travelled in vehicles belonging to the Banana Company and were accompanied by senior company employees.
10. 231. In the same communication the " Rerum Novarum " Confederation states that the following workers were dismissed from their jobs because of trade union activity: Adriano Barquero Camacho, Gustavo Arias Calvo, Rafael Arretes Chávez, Octavio Delgado, Victor Araya Araya, Germán Jiménez, Jesús Muñoz Arce, José Gutiérrez Sequeira, Antonio Méndez Barrantes, Anselmo Núñez Escalante, Salustiano Méndez Picado, Climaco Sandí Solano and Gregorio González Valdés. The complainant also says that on 13 April 1964, at Puerto González Viquez, the military police threatened Climaco Sandi and Salustiano Méndez Picado, officers of SITRACOBA, with their machine-pistols.
11. 232. The " Rerum Novarum " Confederation attached to its complaint a number of newspaper cuttings to substantiate its allegations and to describe the situation prevailing in the banana zone. It sent further information on 7 June 1964.
12. 233. On 29 June 1964 the Golfito Workers' Union and the Union of Workers of Puerto González Viquez sent a joint communication in which they state that on 24 July (sic) the police authorities at Puerto González Viquez broke up a meeting of workers which was being held in the house of the worker Salomón Bustos Morales, on the ground floor; the object of the meeting was to study a document petitioning the undertaking and to sign a memorandum of requirements; the said authorities proceeded to detain the workers Salomón Bustos Morales, Saturnino Alvarez Moreno, Efrain Quesada Chaverri, Esteban Fonseca Moraga, Sabino Juárez, an officer of the Golfito Workers' Union, and Guillermo Fuentes Ortega, an officer of the Union of Workers of Puerto González Viquez. They also confiscated a memorandum with nine signatures of workers on the back of the above-mentioned petition, three stub books of trade union subscriptions, and other documents belonging to the unions.
13. 234. The Government sent its observations in letters dated 24 July and 17 September 1964. These indicate that Mr. Hatch, Manager of the Banana Company, wrote to the Minister of Labour on 16 May 1964 stating that the Company had proved that persons with extremist ideas had for some time been engaged in sowing hatred, confusion and discontent between the workers and itself, without any justification and using dishonest means, with the intention of disturbing the social peace and inducing the workers to go on illegal strike; having regard to the gravity of the situation created by trade union leaders the Company had decided, in the use of its legitimate rights, strictly to prohibit meetings of workers with those leaders on its property. The letter then requested the Ministry of Labour to take steps to ensure that the Company's decision was respected.
14. 235. In his reply to the Manager the Minister declared that the request mentioned at the end of the preceding paragraph should not be addressed to the Ministry of Labour, which had no police powers. The Minister added that he had been surprised at the action taken by the Company because, in view of the extent of the plantations concerned, it would render freedom of association inoperative in a large area of the country. The Minister of Labour argued that although the Constitution guaranteed private property it also guaranteed the right of free movement, freedom of opinion, the rights of association and assembly, and the right to organise freely.
15. 236. With a view to substantiating his attitude still further the Minister recalled the international obligations contracted by Costa Rica in ratifying the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), and transcribed the relevant passages of Convention 98, as well as the resolution concerning industrial relations on plantations adopted by the I.L.O. Plantations Committee at its Bandung session in December 1950.
16. 237. Having regard to the attitude taken by the Minister of Labour the representatives of the Banana Company then requested the President of the Republic to give orders to prevent the trade union leaders from entering the Company's property and to prevent the holding of trade union meetings there. As, the Minister's letter continues, the Company had expressly invoked the Constitutional right of ownership the President considered that it was his duty to make the aid of the public forces available in this case; his decision, the only one possible in response to an express request such as that made by the Company, did not imply a favourable opinion, on the President's part, of the Company's anti-trade union policy.
17. 238. The letter goes on to say that, in the case of any conflict between the provisions of the Constitution which determine the duties and attributions of the President and Ministers and those which relate to property rights, it is the judicial power which decides in the last resort; any person who considers himself deprived of a statutory right may appeal before the law (recurso de amparo) or-if deprived of liberty-may apply for habeas corpus. The Minister adds that his Government wishes to inform the I.L.O of the real situation prevailing in the Pacific banana zone and is now submitting the question to the judgment of the Organisation so that it may decide what is considered most appropriate and consistent with the standards governing its relations with member States.
18. 239. Lastly the Minister states that, by reason of the many complaints of infringement of freedom of association in the Pacific banana zone, he has given instructions that an investigation shall be made into the matter; the committee set up for the purpose has received statements from the trade union leaders; these have been handed to the representatives of the employer for any observations which they may wish to make; inspectors have been sent out into the zone to inquire into the events complained of and to record evidence on both sides; as soon as the investigation has been concluded it will be brought to the notice of the I.L.O, together with a specific reply to each of the allegations made by the " Rerum Novarum " Confederation.
19. 240. The Committee has already called the Government's attention, on previous occasions', to the principle laid down in the resolution concerning industrial relations on plantations (Bandung, 1950) that the employers of plantation workers " should provide such unions with facilities for the conduct of their normal activities, including free office accommodation, freedom to hold meetings and freedom of entry ". When it examined Case No. 239, also relating to Costa Rica, the Committee recommended the Governing Body " to draw the attention of the Government to the importance which it attaches to the right of plantation workers to hold trade union meetings and to suggest that it might be appropriate to adopt clear provisions as to the meaning to be attached to the terms public meeting and private meeting ; [and] to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that the right of trade unions to meet freely on their own premises, without need for prior authorisation and without control by the public authorities, constitutes a fundamental element of freedom of association ".
20. 241. The Committee notes with interest in the present case that in his letter to the Manager of the Banana Company the Minister of Labour expressly refers to the obligations contracted by the Government of Costa Rica in ratifying Conventions Nos. 87 and 98, transcribing the above-mentioned Bandung resolution and pointing out that the Company's prohibition of trade union meetings on its property would render freedom of association inoperative in a large part of the country.
21. 242. The Committee also notes that, according to the Manager of the Banana Company, the reason for prohibiting trade union meetings on Company property is that " persons with extremist ideas " are sowing hatred, confusion and discontent with the intention of disturbing social peace. However, the Committee observes that the complaints regarding prohibition of meetings on the Company's plantations come both from unions like that of the Golfito Workers (an affiliate of FUTRA, which according to the Costa Rican Government engaged in political activity in favour of the " Marxist-Leninist system " introduced in Cuba ) and others like the " Rerum Novarum " Confederation which belongs to the Inter-American Regional Organisation of Workers of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (O.R.I.T.). Both the organisations in question maintain that the meetings are for strictly trade union purposes, namely to formulate claims, to obtain workers' signatures thereto, and to form trade unions.
22. 243. The communication sent by the General Confederation of Costa Rican Workers on 16 June 1964 mentions a judicial decision to the effect that there is no infringement of private property if a union leader meets a group of workers in the house in which he lives. When examining Case No. 239, to which reference is made above, the Committee had before it the report of a representative of the Director-General of the I.L.O who had been sent to the area in connection with the allegations made in that case: he said " the company representatives declared that they do not and cannot object " to private meetings on plantations, but that " in order to be a private meeting it had, according to their understanding, to be held in a closed room ". The Director-General's representative added that the Costa Rican Constitution merely says, in article 26, " previous authorisation shall not be required for meetings held in private places. Meetings held in public shall be regulated by law."
23. 244. In the present case the complainants allege that trade union meetings are prohibited, including those to be held in the workers' homes; the letter from the Manager of the Company, too, seems to imply a decision to prohibit all kinds of trade union meetings, without distinguishing whether they are public or private; and an absolute prohibition of trade union meetings unless authorised by the Company also seems to be the sense of the instructions given by the President of the Republic.
24. 245. It would appear to follow from the above that the situation regarding application of the laws on the right of assembly is not clear. Moreover the Committee observes that, according to the Government's statement, in the case of disputes arising from the application of Constitutional and other provisions on property rights and the duties of the public authorities, the only means available to members of the population if they considered themselves wrongly treated is to have recourse to the judicial power. It does not appear from the documents available to the Committee that there has been recourse to the courts in the instances reported.
25. 246. Again, the Government states that it is now conducting an investigation into the events complained of, and that the results will be communicated to the I.L.O together with the Government's observations on other allegations contained in the letter from the " Return Novarum " Confederation. The Committee considers that the investigation and the Government's observations may produce new elements which will enable it to evaluate more accurately the various problems that have been raised.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 247. In these circumstances the Committee recommends the Governing Body to note that the Government has promised to furnish the results of the investigation now being conducted and its own specific observations on the various points in the complaint by the Costa Rican Confederation of Workers " Return Novarum ", and, for the time being, to postpone further examination of the case.