Definitive Report - Report No 204, November 1980

Case No 959 (Honduras) - Complaint date: 10-APR-80 - Closed

1. 180. The complaints are contained in a communication from the Trade Union Committee of the Workers of Central America and Panama (CUSCA) dated 10 April 1980 and a communication from the international Federation of Commercial, Clerical and Technical Employees (FIST) dated 28 August 1980. The Government replied in a communication dated 8 September 1980.
2. 181. Honduras 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. Allegations of the complainants

1. 182. The complainants allege that under legislative decree No. 903 of 24 March 1980 liquidating the National Development Bank (BNF) and establishing the National Agricultural Development Bank (BANADESA), the entire staff of the former were dismissed on 31 March 1980 and the social benefits to which they were entitled liquidated, thus terminating all previous labour commitments, both individual and collective, contracted by BNF.
2. 183. The complainants state that the dismissal of the staff en masse is a violation of the Labour Code and the existing collective agreement, and aims in reality at destroying the BNF trade union. This is clear from the fact that its national and sectoral leaders were dismissed without any opportunity of reinstatement or possibility of defending themselves, and the fact that BANADESA has been looking for new employees. Also, the BNF staff who have gone to work for BANADESA are employed on terms vastly inferior to these enjoyed by the BNF employees under the collective agreement then in force.

B. Reply of the Government

1. 184. The Government states that total reorganisation of BNF had been considered at various times since the late 1950s. The establishment of BANADESA thus sprang from the need for reorganisation that, geared to the actual requirements of the country's agricultural sector, would do away with outdated administrative procedures and an attitude on the part of the staff to resist improvement of their skills and that the said reorganisation would be able to cope with rising running costs and correct the current stagnation of the credit portfolio.
2. 185. The Government adds that the staff with whom BANADESA's operations were begun were selected from among former BNF employees according to technical requirements and their past records so that the new undertaking would be staffed by the most qualified employees. Thus, 645 BANADESA employees previously worked for BNF. The Government states that the establishment of BANADESA was, for the various reasons mentioned above, due to the need to develop the agricultural sector and was never intended for the petty purpose of destroying a trade union.

C. Conclusions of the Committee

1. 186. The Committee notes that there is a clear contradiction between the complainants' statement that the establishment of BANADESA and the consequent dismissal of the BNF staff were intended to destroy the BNF trade union and the Government's reply that these measures obeyed strictly economic reasons and that the subsequent recruitment of BANADESA staff was based exclusively on considerations of occupational qualifications on this point, the Committee recalls that its terms of reference do not include the problem of breach of employment contract by dismissal, unless the dismissal was an act of anti-union discrimination. In this connection, the Committee takes note of the complainants' statement that, pursuant to the decree of 24 March 1980 providing that BANADESA's administration would enjoy complete freedom in selecting and hiring its staff, the national and sectoral leaders of the BNF Trade Union, were dismissed without any opportunity of being reinstated in BANADESA or any possibility of defending themselves. The Committee wishes to point out that in such circumstances workers who consider themselves prejudiced by anti-union discriminatory measures should be able to appeal to a court or some other independent authority. The Committee also notes that the Labour Code of Honduras forbids employers to dismiss or prejudice in any way their workers on account of trade union membership or participation it lawful trade union activities.
2. 187. Furthermore, the Committee considers that for the sake of sound labour relations it would have been advantageous for the employers and workers to discuss jointly such matters as the way in which BNF was to be reorganised, the continuing application of the provisions of the collective agreement, or the implementation of impartial procedures to ensure that workers entering BANADESA would be selected according to objective criteria, all of which should have been done in the light of the Co-operation at the Level of the Undertaking Recommendation, 1952 (No. 94).

The Committee's recommendations

1. 188. In these circumstances the Committee recommends the Governing Body to draw the attention of the Government to the importance, as stressed it the two last paragraphs, of observing the principles relating to co-operation between employers and workers at the level of the undertaking and to those relating to protection against anti-union discrimination, in particular the principle that workers who feel that they have been the subject of discriminatory measures, should be able to appeal to a court or some other independent authority in order to secure the application of section 96(3) of the Labour Code of Honduras expressly forbidding employers to dismiss or prejudice in any way their workers on account of trade union membership or participation in lawful trade union activities.