Definitive Report - Report No 197, November 1979

Case No 945 (Argentina) - Complaint date: 22-OCT-79 - Closed

1. 20. By a communication dated 22 October 1979, the Staff Association of the World Health Organisation (WHO) at Geneva presented a claim against the Government of Argentina based on article 24 of the ILO Constitution alleging violation of 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), both of which have been ratified by Argentina.

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 21. The Committee proceeded to a preliminary examination of these allegations on the basis of decisions previously taken by the Governing Body in similar situations where a communication submitted under article 24 of the Constitution had concerned, in the complainant's opinion, freedom of association questions.
2. 22. The Association mentioned above states that Miss Viviana Ercilia Micucci, an Argentine citizen and international official working for a subsidiary body of the Panamerican Health Organisation (which is a regional organisation of WHO), was abducted on 11 November 1976. The complainant states that as she was a member of the staff, she was automatically a member of a staff association, an association with which the management had consultations on such matters as a compensation scale. Miss Micucci was a member of a joint staff/management subcommittee engaged in a salary survey within the United Nations common system. It is understood, says the complainant, that material on this survey has also disappeared. According to the complainant, there is a reason to suppose that the abduction has resulted from her activity as a staff representative and that the Government of Argentina has failed to protect her rights under the Conventions mentioned above.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 23. The Committee has undertaken a preliminary examination of the nature of the allegations made, to the exclusion of any other question which this communication could raise. It notes, in particular, that Miss Micucci does not appear to have been appointed as a trade union officer by the staff, but that she was "automatically" a member of the staff association, as an official in the international organisation concerned. In addition, the complainant does not establish a prima facie case that the abduction - by persons unknown - was linked in some way to activities of a trade union nature. It merely points out that Miss Micucci was a member of a joint subcommittee engaged in a salary survey concerning international officials and that documents concerning this survey are also understood to have disappeared. The Committee is of the opinion that the elements submitted do not establish an apparent link between the events described in the complaint and the obligations arising for the State concerned from Conventions Nos. 87 and 98. It considers that the complainant has not produced any facts which tend to prove that Argentina, in the case at hand, has failed to secure the effective observance - in the terms of article 3, paragraph 2 of the Standing Orders relating to the procedure to be followed in the case of representations under article 24 of the Constitution of the ILO - of the instruments mentioned above. On the other hand the Committee has learned that steps have been taken by the Secretariat of the United Nations regarding the situation of this international official.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 24. In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body, for the reasons set out in the preceding paragraph, to dismiss this communication without transmitting it to the Government concerned.