Interim Report - Report No 149, November 1975

Case No 763 (Uruguay) - Complaint date: 03-JUL-73 - Closed

1. 147. As a result of complaints lodged by numerous trade union organisations, the Committee already considered this case at its sessions in November 1973, February 1974 and November 1974 and on each occasion submitted an interim report to the Governing Body. These reports appear in paragraphs 532-552 of its 139th Report, paragraphs 191-221 of its 142nd Report, and paragraphs 305-348 of its 147th Report, and were adopted by the Governing Body, respectively, at the latter's 191st Session (November 1973), 192nd Session (February-March 1974) and 194th Session (November 1974).
2. 148. Uruguay has ratified 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).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

• First Allegations, concerning Dissolution of the National Workers' Convention, General Interference in Trade Union Affairs, and the Arrest of Trade Unionists
  149. 149 The complainants had protested when, on 30 June 1973, a decree was (C NT) enacted dissolving the National Workers' Convention.
  150. 150 The complainants added that on that same day the Uruguayan authorities, assisted by the Army, had brutally put down a strike declared by the oil workers and placed the ANCAP refinery under military control. At the same time, the authorities had closed the offices of the trade union concerned and forbidden all meetings. The complainants added that the Glass Workers' Federation was also unable to continue its activities and that the premises occupied by several teachers' organisations had been broken into, typewriters and mimeograph machines destroyed, and documents and records seized. The headquarters of the National Union of Building and Allied Trades Workers, stated the complainants, were occupied by the Army, its funds seized and its meetings forbidden.
  151. 151 The complainants alleged that very many trade unionists had been arrested (the names of some of them being given) and indicated that other leading trade unionists were being sought by the police.
  152. 152 The Government stated that the National Workers' Convention, directed by totalitarian extremists belonging to minority groups, had opposed the Government's social policies, ignoring the right to work, advocating violence, encouraging the unlawful occupation of places of work, both public and private, encouraging sabotage and fomenting very serious and continuous disorder in the streets, thereby paralysing public services, the movement of supplies, and the entire life of the country. What was at stake, the Government maintained, was not the right to strike. The point was that minority groups were pushing the National Workers' Convention into causing social chaos. In fomenting violent clashes with the authorities, that organisation had been pursuing no occupational aims but had notoriously been after political ends, first and foremost, the overthrow of the country's lawful institutions.
  153. 153 Article 39 of the Constitution, the Government affirmed, sanctioned freedom of association, provided such association was not illegal. Act No. 9936 (18 July 1940) defined as illegal any association encouraging violence against the institutions of the Republic or the authorities of the country, and provided for the dissolution of such associations and for proceedings against their leaders and members. Moreover, Section 5 of Act No. 14,068 (10 July 1972) allowed the Government to suspend all meetings and activities, wherever held or undertaken, likely to lead to a breach of the peace. It was the Government's prime duty to maintain order, and hence it had been obliged to dissolve the National Workers' Convention, order the arrest of the Convention's leaders, and hand them over to the appropriate courts. The above comments, the Government felt, also applied to other workers' organisations.
  154. 154 The Government also referred to two trade unionists in particular, A. Tamayo, a leader of the National Workers' Convention, who had been imprisoned, and E. Pastorino, President of the World Federation of Trade Unions, who was being actively sought. The action taken against these two had been undertaken for reasons which had nothing to do with the fact that they were trade unionists. The former had in any case been released.
  155. 155 At its session in February-March 1974 the Governing Body, on the Committee's recommendation, had taken note of the Government's statement about the release of Antonio Tamayo and drawn attention to the principle of prompt and fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal in all cases, including cases in which trade unionists are charged with political or criminal offences which the Government considers have no relation to their trade union functions or activities. It likewise asked the Government to say whether proceedings had been instituted against all the trade unionists in question and, if so, to indicate the nature of the court dealing with the case and the stage the proceedings had reached, and to supply copies of the judgments, once they were rendered, with the grounds adduced therefor.
  156. 156 As regards the dissolution of the National Workers' Convention, the Committee drew the Government's attention to the importance it attached to the principle that workers' organisations should not be subject to suspension or dissolution by administrative authority, and that likewise dissolution by the executive branch of the government did not ensure the right of defence which normal judicial procedure alone could guarantee. The Governing Body likewise asked for the Government's observations on the alleged ban on the activities of the Glass Workers' Federation and the National Union of Building and Allied Trade Workers, and on the measures taken against various teachers' organisations. It asked, too, for precise information on the nature of the charges against E. Pastorino.
• Subsequent Allegations Made by the Complainants
  157. 157 Later, further complaints were lodged by trade union organisations. The complainants alleged that the unions had to apply to police headquarters and to the Ministry of the Interior for permission to organise trade union meetings, indicating the date and place of the meeting and what the subject would be. Furthermore, the police had occupied the offices of several unions and arrested many workers.
  158. 158 The complainants also quoted a number of arbitrary actions by the Government, notably the searches carried out in many trade union offices, the order to arrest all the leaders of the National Workers' Convention, the ban on collecting trade union dues, the dismissal of workers for trade union activities and the imprisonment of those who had collected union dues. They reported that the offices of the National Union of Metal and Allied Workers had been searched. The same had been done at the premises of the Wool Workers' Federation and the National Union of Maritime Transport Workers. Those three organisations were engaged exclusively in trade union activities. The complainants also referred to the arrests which had followed. The police and Army had interfered more and more often in union affairs since the coup d'état of June 1973; often, trade union property had been damaged, stolen or confiscated. The offices of the Textile Workers' Congress had been ransacked and all trade union broadcasts by national radio stations had been forbidden.
  159. 159 The complainants went on to say that Tamayo, after his release, had resumed his activities in the transport unions and in his capacity as general workers' delegate on the Productivity, Prices and Incomes Board (a tripartite body) but shortly thereafter had been dismissed by the Uruguayan Public Transport Co., along with forty-eight other activists. The Chief of Police had informed the Uruguayan Bank Employees' Association that its offices would be closed if it pursued its activities and continued to press its claims. According to the complainants, all trade union activities in Uruguay had ceased.
  160. 160 They also said that many trade union leaders had been arrested and some tortured, while others had disappeared. The authorities, they claimed, had published a document containing the names and photographs of wanted trade union leaders, among them all the leaders of the National Workers' Convention.
  161. 161 In answer to some of these allegations, the Government had supplied copies of communications exchanged between the police commissariat, the Director of the National Information Agency, and the Director-General for Executive Co-ordination. From those communications, it appeared that the following nine people had been detained in the Municipal Sports Stadium and then released: Victor Brindisi, Hector Goñi, Miguel Bouzas, Victor Cayota, Carlos Espinosa, Alberto Fernández, Sonia Guarnieri, José Luis Cola Horne and Romulo Oraison. Of these, Sonia Guarnieri had been arrested on 20 October 1973, released on 24 November of that year, re-arrested on 14 February 1974, and was still in gaol. Three other people (Ricardo Vilaro, A. Rubio and Héctor Rodriguez) had been detained in the central prison on 3 April 1974 on instructions from the military magistrate. All those persons had been detained in their capacity as members of the National Workers' Convention (a body wound up for working against the national interest) and as part of an emergency procedure. Mention was made of seven other trade union leaders (Antonio Tamayo, Félix Diaz, Roberto Olmos, Héctor Betancourt, Honorio Lindner, Aparicio Guzmán and Rubén Villaverde), provisionally detained for the same reasons but subsequently released. The trade union leader Héctor P. Rodriguez and two teachers had been charged by the military legal authorities with sedition, following an inquiry undertaken after a bomb had gone off in the Faculty of Engineering.
  162. 162 In considering the case at its session in November 1974, the Committee expressed its concern at the numerous and grave accusations brought against the Government of infringement of trade union rights and regretted that the Government had left many of those accusations unanswered. It recalled that it had, in the past, emphasised that the purpose of the whole procedure was to promote respect for trade union rights in law and in fact, while protecting governments against unreasonable accusations. Governments for their part should realise the importance, for the protection of their own good name, of formulating for objective examination detailed factual replies to such detailed factual charges as might be put forward.
  163. 163 As regards the arrest and detention of trade unionists, the Committee once more drew the Government's attention to the principle evoked by the Committee when the case was being considered in February 1974, namely the importance of prompt and fair trial by an independent and impartial judiciary in all cases, including cases in which trade unionists are charged with political or criminal offences which the Government considers have no relation to their trade union functions. Whenever the Committee had reached the conclusion, in the light of the information provided, that the persons accused had been tried by the appropriate judicial authorities with full safeguards for a fair trial and condemned for activities having nothing to do with ordinary trade union activities, it had always taken the view that the case called for no further consideration. The Committee, however, had emphasised that the question as to whether such a matter was one relating to a criminal offence or to the exercise of trade union rights was not one which could be determined unilaterally by the government concerned. It was for the Committee to reach a decision on that point, after considering all the information available, and above all a copy of the verdict or sentence rendered.
  164. 164 The Committee likewise emphasised, as it had done on various occasions in the past, that the detention by the authorities of trade unionists concerning whom no grounds for conviction are subsequently found is liable to involve restrictions of trade union rights. Governments should take steps to ensure that the authorities concerned have instructions appropriate to eliminate the danger of detention for trade union activities.
  165. 165 Having thus stressed the above principles (applicable to the further accusations brought against the Government since the Committee last considered the case, as well as to those originally lodged by the complainants), the Committee observed that the information available to it raised the question whether the Government was abiding by the basic principles of the freedom of association Conventions ratified by Uruguay. In particular, the further information submitted by complainants, besides quoting numerous actual cases in which trade unionists had been arrested and detained, made allegations about breaches of a trade union's right to convene meetings, the occupation of trade union premises (as in the case of the Wool Workers' Federation, the National Union of workers in the Metal Trade and Similar Industries, the Textile Workers' Union, and the National Union of Maritime Transport Workers), and the dismissal of trade unionists because of their trade union activities.
  166. 166 These allegations were so far-reaching and serious that the Governing Body, acting on the recommendation of the Committee, asked the Government to be good enough to supply full information at an early date about all the points raised in the complainants' allegations, with special reference to the arrest and detention of the trade union leaders quoted (indicating exactly why they were arrested and whether or not they had been tried), together with its comments on allegations of interference in trade union matters (the right to convene a trade union meeting, the forcible occupation of trade union premises, the alleged ban on activities by the Federation of Glass Workers and the National Union of Building and Allied Trades Workers), and on the action taken against a number of teachers' organisations.
• Further Allegations Submitted to the Committee
  167. 167 In a communication dated 10 September 1974, the National Workers' Convention (in exile) said that on 6 September the offices of the Bank Employees' Association had been occupied, the President, Inmer Prada Rousse, and the secretary, Antonio Marotta Rienzi, being arrested. Similarly, the offices of the Public Health Workers' Union were occupied, five workers, including the secretary, D. Espinosa, being arrested. The National Workers' Convention added that the authorities were searching for a leader of the Teachers' Federation, with the help of numerous photographs, at the same time systematically putting it about that he was a criminal. When the man's wife called on the military authorities to ascertain why her husband had been arrested, she had been kept as a hostage. In a communication dated 14 October 1974, the National workers' Convention affirmed that the leaders of the building workers' union had been arrested and tortured and the union shut down, because they were claiming paid holidays and the application of an Act declared illegal by the President of the Republic, although drafted by Parliament and approved by the Government.
  168. 168 In a letter dated 18 November 1974, the world Federation of Teachers' Unions supplied information received from a member organisation, the University Teaching Staff Federation of Uruguay. The authorities were stated to have forced university teachers to sign a sworn statement to the effect that they did not belong and never had belonged to any of the dissolved organisations. The statement contained a clause stating that a false declaration would entail penal sanctions. The staff of the Faculty of Medicine refused to sign this statement, which led to the closing of the Faculty. The staff of the other faculties were said to have adopted the same attitude.
  169. 169 In a letter dated 20 November 1974, the Trade Unions International of Workers of the Building, Wood and Building Materials Industries alleged that on 9 October 1974 the Government outlawed the National Union of Building and Allied Trades' Workers (SUNCA), and hence forbade all activities by this organisation throughout the country.
  170. 170 In yet another communication, the National Workers' Convention stated that a hunger strike had been begun by more than a hundred prisoners in the Municipal Stadium in Montevideo, among whom were building workers, metal workers, civil servants, bank employees, students, a doctor and some lawyers. The reason for this hunger strike was that these people were being tortured to force them to go out at night and efface the slogans the workers were writing on the walls referring to their claims and their freedoms. Many of the tortured prisoners had painful wounds and other after-effects of the punishment they had received. In a letter dated 4 December 1974, the World Confederation of Labour also protested against the inhuman way in which these people were being treated, and confirmed that one hundred and six trade unionists, imprisoned in the stadium, were on hunger strike.
• Observations of the Government
  171. 171 In two communications dated 27 December 1974 and 4 February 1975 (transmitted by the Permanent Delegation in Geneva on 16 February 1975) the Government transmitted its comments. In the first communication, the Government stated that it had to cope with a real civil war, unleashed by Marxist minority groups which were directing other organisations, amongst them the so-called National Workers' Convention. Those minority groups were not out to achieve an improvement in working conditions, which was the legitimate field of trade union activities. They were, on the contrary, out to achieve purely political ends, including the overthrow of existing institutions and the creation of social chaos, which would inexorably lead to the emergence of a social, political and economic system in accordance with Marxist ideology. The Government of Uruguay, having a clear duty to maintain peace and security, had been forced to take the action required in these circumstances and, in accordance with very clear provisions of the Constitution and legislation (Section 39 of the Constitution and Act No. 9936 dated 18 July 1940), to outlaw associations seeking the violent overthrow of the foundations of the national life or using violence against the authorities of the State.
  172. 172 Accordingly, the Government continued, the former National Workers' Convention and the National Union of Building and Allied Trades Workers (Decree No. 809 of 1974), together with the other associations specified in Decree 10261973 (concerning political parties and associations) had been outlawed and dissolved. Orders had been issued for the arrest of the leaders and other members of those bodies who had been guilty of acts of violence. The Government enclosed copies of the two decrees mentioned above. The activities of the bodies concerned were in its view clearly, unlawful and could not conceivably be excused by the plea that they were undertaken in the defence of legitimate interests since they were against Uruguayan law and the interest of Uruguay.
  173. 173 The decree dissolving the national Union of Building and Allied Trades workers states that this body had decided to paralyse trade union activities contrary to national legislation. It had behaved in a way gravely harmful to the national economy and calculated to disrupt social and trade union peace. The body in question was by no means representative of the majority of the workers; it was carrying on from where the Marxist organisations, since dissolved, had left off, and afforded an example of the way in which occupational organisations were being used for ends other than those prescribed in that connection by the Constitution. The decree therefore ordered that the Union be dissolved, withdrew its legal personality, and ordered that its premises be closed and all its assets confiscated.
  174. 174 In its communication of 4 February 1975 the Government refers, in the first place, to the situation prevailing in the country which, it points out, was the reason for the declaration of the state of internal war on 5 April 1972 "with the sole purpose of authorising such action as may be needed to put down groups or individuals who might by any means conspire against the fatherland, within the meaning of section 253 of the Constitution of the Republic". The Government explains, in particular, that, since 1968, the country has been confronted with armed sedition which used social aspirations as a pretext and which was designed to spread chaos by crime and terror, with the object of overthrowing the institutions in force and opening the way to a takeover of power by unrepresentative minorities. Hitherto, there was no adequate legislation and the Government was forced to take the action provided for in the Constitution in situations of extreme gravity. Following the declaration of the state of internal war - with the authorisation of the Legislature and in conformity with the Constitution - the Government submitted to Parliament the State Security and Public Order Bill. The Bill was approved by Parliament and its purpose was to protect the nation's overriding interests against attack by organised unlawful associations.
  175. 175 The Government adds that the action of certain minorities consists in infiltrating all kinds of popular organisations. Thus, states the Government, the activities of the National Workers' Convention went more and more beyond the limits of trade union activities and openly contributed to a climate of violence and clashes with the authorities of the State. As an example, the Government quotes a number of public statements made by the CNT, amongst which is to be found a request for the resignation of the President of the Republic, the rejection of the Constitution of Peace and State of Emergency Act, real economic independence and full national sovereignty, dissolution of the National Education Council, an independent anti-imperialist foreign policy, self determination, peace and friendship with all nations. As from 27 June 1973 an attempt was made to proclaim a general strike. This was used as an excuse for violence and groups of workers were encouraged to take over their workplaces, both public and private. The Government made every attempt to restore normality by the exercise of reason and by holding numerous meetings. Increased wages and means of settlement of disputes were proposed. According to the Government, the CNT ignored these moves and continued to promote violence, inciting acts of sabotage, as, for example, in the ANCAP oil refinery. The Government, taking the view that any association becomes unlawful when it turns to violence and may be capable of such offences as rebellion, sedition, civil disobedience, etc., proceeded to dissolve the CNT and to bring its officers before the criminal courts.
  176. 176 The Government supplies the following list of leaders, indicating their position before the law. Leaders in respect of whom warrants of arrest were issued in connection with the dissolution of the CNT but who could not be detained for the purpose of clarifying their situation before the criminal courts: José D'Elia, Vladimir Turianski, Enrique Pastorino, Daniel Baldassari and Victor Brindisi. Leaders who were detained and subsequently released, it having been shown that they had not been implicated in the offences of which they were accused: Victor Cayota, Roberto Olmos Barone, Jonás Steneri (who was not detained for having clarified his work situation), Honorio Lindner, Aparicio Guzmán, Rubén Villaverde, Sonia Guarnieri, Ramón Freire Pizzano, Hector Goñi, Carlos Espinosa and Hector Betancourt. Leaders against whom action was taken for seditious activities: Victor Semprini Robaina, Alberto Rubio Pellegrini, León Gualberto Duarte and Ricardo Vilaro. Leader questioned about seditious activities, but whose arrest has not been procured: Humberto de los Santos.
  177. 177 In its communication, the Government again refers to the reasons why the Single Union of Construction Workers was dissolved. As concerns the allegations that trade union premises were broken into, the Government explains that such measures were taken because it was suspected that activities which were not of a trade union character were being carried out, or that in some cases there were supplies of pamphlets containing political propaganda. The persons detained on these occasions were immediately released when their situation had been clarified, or they were brought before the competent criminal courts. The materials and the documents taken were returned when they were not found to be of an incriminating nature. Finally, the Government refers to certain allegations concerning Law No. 14.284 of 31 July 1974, which established the machinery provided for in the statute concerning public officials, and in which a condition is laid down that, for admission to the public administration, a declaration has to be signed swearing allegiance to the republican system of government. The Government points out that this provision is not discriminatory, and that its purpose is solely to require an open display of willingness to respect the fundamental legal standards of the nation, which has adopted a representative and republican form of government (article 82 of the Constitution).

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

• Conclusions of the Committee
  178. 178 The Committee recalls that the Workers' Vice-Chairman of the Governing Body, at the latter's session in November 1974, drew attention to the very serious position of the Uruguayan trade union movement. He asked the Director-General to urge the Government of that country to provide all the information requested before the Governing Body's next session. In the event that information was still not forthcoming, the Workers' group would have to make proposals for the setting up of a commission of inquiry, in accordance with article 26 of the ILO Constitution, concerning the application by member States of the Conventions ratified by them.
  179. 179 In a letter dated 17 December 1974, the World Federation of Trade Unions protested against arrests of trade unionists, the Government's efforts to do away totally with the basic rights of the workers and their organisations and its persistent refusal to supply the Committee with full information. It proposed the establishment of a fact-finding commission on freedom of association and a commission of inquiry under article 26 of the ILO Constitution, to examine the application by Uruguay of Conventions Nos. 87 and 98.
  180. 180 The Committee is thus in receipt of complaints from a large number of trade union organisations, complaints which contain allegations concerning the arrest and conditions of detention of trade unionists, the dissolution of unions, official interference in trade union activities or their total prohibition, the taking over of trade union premises, the confiscation of trade union assets, restrictions on the right of assembly, and dismissal of trade unionists for trade union activities. For its part, the Government has transmitted information and observations on some of these allegations stating the reasons for the action it took.
  181. 181 The Committee is confronted with a situation which raises important problems in relation to various basic principles of freedom of association, and which seems to affect a large section of the trade union movement in Uruguay. In this connection, the Committee recalls that it had already been called upon to make an examination of the new trade union legislation in Uruguay in a case, relating to that country and that it had noted a number of violations of the standards laid down in Convention No. 87. Moreover, the Committee notes that new complaints are still being presented relative to the trade union situation in Uruguay and that the information supplied by the complainants and by the Government is largely contradictory.
  182. 182 In these circumstances, the Committee considers it appropriate to proceed with a more detailed examination of the situation by having recourse to the Fact-Finding and Conciliation Commission on Freedom of Association or to a Commission of Inquiry established under article 26 of the Constitution. Finally, in order to expedite the procedure, and to obtain, as soon as possible, fuller information to enable it to reach its conclusions, and to determine what further steps should be taken in this case, the Committee considers that it would be most useful at the present stage to have recourse to the direct contacts procedure which has been used in the past and which is provided for in paragraphs 20 and 21 of its 127th Report.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 183. Consequently, the Committee recommends the Governing Body to request the Government to give its consent as soon as possible to the appointment of a representative by the Director-General to proceed to an examination in Uruguay of the facts relating to the complaints and to inform the Committee of the result of his mission.
   • Geneva, 27 February 1975. (Signed) Roberto AGO, Chairman.