Interim Report - Report No 172, March 1978

Case No 885 (Ecuador) - Complaint date: 09-JUL-77 - Closed

1. 371. The complaints are contained in two communications, one from the Permanent Congress of Trade Union Unity of Latin American Workers (CPUSTAL), dated 9 July 1977, and the other from the World Federation of Trade Unions, dated 20 July 1977. The CPUSTAL supplied additional information in a letter dated 1 August 1977. The Government forwarded its observations by a communication dated 28 September 1977. On 12 October 1977 the International Federation of Free Teachers' Unions submitted a complaint concerning which the Government has not yet transmitted its observations.
2. 372. Ecuador has ratified both 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

1. 373. The CPUSTAL alleged that the Police Intendant for the province of Guayás, in pursuance of non-existent laws, had pronounced judgement sentencing to two years' imprisonment, and fines of from 8,000 to 10,000 sucres, the President of the Confederation of Workers of Ecuador (CTE), Juan Vasquez Bastidas, and the President of the National Union of Educators (UNE), Manuel Anton. These organisations are members of the CPUSTAL. The complainants added that these persons had not been given any sort of trial.
2. 374. The WFTU stated that the three Ecuadorian trade union Confederations - the CTE, the CEDOC and the CEOSL - had organised, on 18 May 1977, a 24-hour national strike in support of a claim for higher wages and other demands of an economic and social nature. The UNE, which has a membership of 60,000 teachers, called a work stoppage on the same day with a view to obtaining a salary rise and an increase in the national education budget. In response, added the WFTU, the Government issued a decree, No. 1475, conferring upon police intendants the status of special judges competent to try trade union officials and strikers under an expeditious procedure with no right of appeal. At the same time the Government instructed these police intendants to bring to trial the principal leaders of the three Confederations that had organised the national strike of 18 May, as well as officials of the UNE.
3. 375. Furthermore, continued the complainants, the Supreme Council of Government issued on 30 May 1977 a decree outlawing the UNE and providing for the custodianship of its funds. At the end of June, the General Intendant for the province of Guayás, in pursuance of the aforementioned Decree No. 1475, sentenced Juan Vasquez Bastidas and Manuel Anton to fines and imprisonment. The WFTU further mentioned the arrest of Julio Ayala Serra, President of the Educators' Union for the province of Guayás who was to be tried under the same procedure.
4. 376. The Government, in a detailed reply to which were appended a large number of documents, emphasised that it was its policy to encourage the trade union movement in Ecuador. As evidence of this it pointed to the subsidy of 265,000 sucres that it paid to the country's trade union Confederations, the CTE, the CEDOC and the CEOSL, to cover the expenses of the 1 May rally. However, it continued, the leaders of these three Confederations had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by this event - in which the majority of the participants had no connection with the trade union movement - to incite the workers to take part in a national work stoppage on 18 May 1977, based on a combat manifesto of nine points, not all of which related to industrial matters, and which were refuted one by one. Moreover, none of these demands had been put to the competent authorities through the proper legal channels.
5. 377. In the appendices to the Government's reply there was a list of these points and the arguments whereby the Government refuted them. These demands were as follows:
6. (1) a 50 per cent pay increase; a minimum wage of 3,000 sucres per month; a sliding scale for the adjustment of wages to the rising cost of living;
7. (2) full respect for the right to organise and the right to strike, and repeal of all legislation to the contrary;
8. (3) the immediate settlement of all outstanding labour disputes;
9. (4) effective implementation of the Agrarian Reform Act and reorganising of the administrative services connected with it;
10. (5) reorganisation of the Ministry of Labour;
11. (6) nationalisation of petroleum and effective safeguarding of other natural resources;
12. (7) nationalisation of the electricity industry and modernisation of the railways;
13. (8) nationalisation of foreign trade;
14. (9) nationalisation of wholesale distribution of staple commodities; freezing of the prices of commodities in common use; maintenance of rent control; a solution to the problems of housing for the people.
15. 378. The Government stated that the union leaders were allowed to prepare for the work stoppage in full freedom. They had access to the radio, television and the press at the national level. The Government further pointed out that it had recognised the workers' organisations without reservations. However, it could not fail in its moral and legal duty to preserve public order and ensure that citizens could live their lives normally in every respect. It could only condemn incitement to disorderly conduct and anarchy, whoever was responsible, and any attempt to undermine the functioning of the State by disregarding the procedures in force for dealing with all grievances, individual or collective. In substance, the Government enforced the regulations in force to defend its stability and ensure the preservation of public order and the safety of persons and property. It was these duties that the Government was performing in dealing with the events of 18 May 1977.
16. 379. The Government refuted the complainants' allegations completely. It claimed that these complaints were unfounded and did not mention a single specific case of infringement of the freedom of association Conventions. All persons living on the territory of a State, added the Government, were required to observe the laws of that country. Under Legislative Decree No. 105 of 7 June 1967, the instigators of a collective stoppage of work, and the ringleaders of such a stoppage, were liable to a fine of from 1,000 to 10,000 sucres and from two to five years' imprisonment. Persons who participated in such a work stoppage without having instigated it or being a ringleader were liable to a fine of from 200 to 1,000 sucres and from three months' to one year's imprisonment. A work stoppage within the meaning of this legislative decree was deemed to occur where there was a collective cessation of activity, where establishments were forcibly closed other than in the circumstances provided for by law, and in the event of paralysis of channels of communication or other anti social acts. These provisions had the force of a special Act and had precedence over those of general Acts which were contrary to them.
17. 380. The strike of 18 May 1977, continued the Government, had been prepared, inter alia, by Juan Vasquez Bastidas, Emilio Velasco and José Chávez Chávez, officials of one or other of the workers' associations, the CTE, the CEDOC and the CEOSL, while other unions (bearing the same initials) had refused to be associated with the stoppage and had condemned it as an act of treason by the rank and file, requesting the support of the authorities to enable them to carry on with their daily work. The above-mentioned persons, in instigating the strike, had contravened Legislative Decree No 105.
18. 381. This Legislative Decree, added the Government, was supplemented by Presidential Decree No. 1475, which specified the competent judicial authority and guarantees the rights of defendants. There accordingly existed a judicial institution, established by the State, to mete out punishment in the case of work stoppages and strikes organised unlawfully. The Government appended the text of this decree, adopted on 25 May 1977. Section 1 confers upon general police intendants the status of special judges competent to deal with and pronounce judgement upon offences in connection with collective work stoppages; they must impose the penalties prescribed in Legislative Decree No. 105. Section 2 states that the procedure is to be that prescribed in section 454 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; sections 455, 456, 459 and 460 of that Code are likewise to be observed. Section 3 specifies that special judges may, either on their own initiative or at the request of any administrative or judicial authority, take up a case and try the persons held to be criminally responsible for a collective work stoppage.
19. 382. The judgements handed down in respect of Juan Vasquez Bastidas and Manuel Anton, concluded the Government, had been pronounced in accordance with the legal rules in force in the country and the penalties had been imposed by the legally competent authority. There could, therefore, be no question as to the validity of their conviction.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 383. This case is mainly concerned with the general strike called on 18 May 1977 by the CTE, the CEDOC and the CEOSL and another strike organised on the same day by the UNE. This work stoppage resulted in the sentencing, under an emergency procedure, of trade union leaders including Juan Vasquez Bastidas and Manuel Anton. The complainants also mention the arrest of another trade union leader, Julio Ayala Serra, and the outlawing of the UNE, but the Government has made no observations on the latter two points.
2. 384. As already pointed out by the Committee, Article 3 of Convention No. 87 recognises the right of trade union organisations - i.e. workers' organisations for furthering and defending their occupational interests (Article 10) - to formulate their programme of action and organise their activities; this entails not only the right to negotiate with employers but also the right to express their point of view on economic and social questions affecting their members' occupational interests. In view of this right that trade unions are thus recognised to have, the Committee has always considered that the right to strike is a legitimate and, indeed, an essential means whereby workers may promote and defend their occupational interests. But it has added that the right to strike constitutes a fundamental right of workers and their organisations only in so far as it is utilised as a means of defending their economic interests, that the prohibition of strikes designed to coerce the government, if they are not occupational in character, does not constitute an infringement of freedom of association, and that strikes of a purely political nature do not fall within the scope of the principles of freedom of association. In the present instance, a number of the demands made in connection with the strike of 18 May 1977 were clearly occupational in character, while others were not.
3. 385. As concerns the claims of an economic or occupational nature, it further stems from the principles recalled in the previous paragraph that the right to strike - which, as the Committee has pointed out, must also be recognised in the case of trade union federations and Confederations - should not be restricted solely to industrial disputes likely to be resolved through the signing of a collective agreement. The Committee considers that workers and their organisations should be allowed to express in a broader context, if they so wish, any dissatisfaction they may feel as concerns economic and social matters affecting their members' occupational interests, so long as such action consists merely in the expression of a protest and is not intended as a breach of the peace.
4. 386. In the present case, Messrs. Juan Vazquez Bastidas and Manuel Anton have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and heavy fines as a result of the strike of 18 May 1977 and in pursuance of Decrees Nos. 105 and 1475, mentioned above. The first of these decrees punishes severely and in very broad terms collective stoppages of work. The Committee is of the opinion that this decree should be reviewed in the light of the considerations and principles set forth in the preceding paragraphs. The second, adopted only a few days after the strike in question, entrusts senior police officers with the responsibility of trying offenders; the sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure to which it refers apply in principle to breaches of the law; they provide for an expeditious procedure with no possibility of appeal.
5. 387. The Committee considers that this summary procedure lends itself to abuse, and that all arrested trade unionists should be subject to normal judicial procedure guaranteeing the rights of defence and conforming) to the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This instrument provides, inter alia, that everyone convicted of a crime shall have the right to his conviction and sentence being reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law (Article 14, 5).

The Committee's recommendations

1. 388. In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body:
   • (a) to draw the attention of the Government and the trade unions concerned to the considerations and principles respecting strikes set forth in paragraphs 384 and 385;
   • (b) to request the Government to review in this light Decree No. 105 of 7 June 1967, and to consider the repeal, for the reasons stated in paragraph 387, of Presidential Decree No. 1475 of 25 May 1977;
   • (c) to request the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations to follow developments in connection with the matter referred to in subparagraph (b) above;
   • (d) to suggest to the Government the possibility of reconsidering the position of Messrs. Juan Vasquez Bastidas and Manuel Anton;
   • (e) to request the Government to indicate the present position of Julio Ayala Serra and to forward its observations with respect to the outlawing of the UNE;
   • (f) to take note of this interim report.
     • Geneva, 10 November 1977. (Signed) Roberto AGO, Chairman.