Definitive Report - Report No 291, November 1993

Case No 1662 (Argentina) - Complaint date: 28-MAY-92 - Closed

1. 42. The complaint is contained in communications from the United Trade Union of Education Workers of Mendoza (SUTE) dated 28 May and 30 July 1992. Subsequently, the SUTE presented further information in a communication dated 3 September 1992. The Government sent its comments in a letter dated 21 May 1993.
2. 43. Argentina has ratified both the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. The complainant organization's allegations

1. 44. In its communications dated 28 May and 30 July 1992, the United Trade Union of Education Workers of Mendoza states that pursuant to elections to appoint titular and deputy shop stewards to represent unionized staff members, Mrs. Raquel Blas de Mora and Mrs. Alba Jauregui de Rego, amongst others, were appointed titular shop stewards in the nursery school of the Godoy Cruz municipality, Province of Mendoza. The complainant organization adds that the municipality's new authorities decided to dismiss both trade union leaders in May 1992 without having sought the appropriate authorization in advance to lift their trade union immunity. It states that this decision was clearly taken with the aim of infringing trade union rights by encouraging other education workers to leave the organization or by deterring them from taking part in union activities. Finally, the complainant organization states that after an administrative appeal for annulment was presented and rejected, an application for the enforcement of constitutional rights (amparo) was lodged in court.
2. 45. In its communication dated 3 September 1992, the complainant organization alleges that deductions were made from the wages of the teaching staff in the province who had participated in strike action. It states that the provincial Government did not institute any judicial proceedings to declare the strike unlawful and that, consequently, the deduction for July 1992 was made without the formal communication of any decision or order from the authorities to the staff concerned or the union chapter representing them.

B. The Government's reply

1. 46. In its communication dated 21 May 1993, the Government states in respect of the allegation relating to the dismissals of two teachers at the Godoy Cruz nursery school No. 1 that the establishment in question is not administered by the Ministry of Education of the Province of Mendoza but by the municipality as a crèche for children aged six weeks to four years in which staff are subject to the statutes applicable to provincial public employees. Similarly, it emphasizes that the persons in question were not dismissed but simply that their contracts signed with the municipality were, inter alia, not extended as has been the case for other workers.
2. 47. Moreover, although the teachers in question have invoked their status as trade union leaders, the Government states that such status is undocumented in the Godoy Cruz municipal archives. For the teachers to be entitled to the protection afforded to trade union leaders it would be necessary not only for the posts to have been won in elections but also for the employer to have been notified thereof officially and at the proper time, neither of which was the case.
3. 48. In respect of the claim for the payment of amounts deducted from July 1992 wages as a result of participation in industrial action by the staff of schools administered by the Directorate General of Schools of the Province of Mendoza, the Government states that on 9 November 1992 the deducted amounts were reimbursed to the staff in question.

C. The Committee's conclusions

1. 49. The Committee observes that the allegations made refer, first of all, to the termination of the contracts of two teachers at the nursery school in the Godoy Cruz municipality, in the Province of Mendoza, who had been appointed shop stewards and, secondly, to wage deductions from teachers' pay in the Province of Mendoza pursuant to a strike in July 1992. On the latter score, the Committee takes note of the Government's statement that these wage deductions were reimbursed in November 1992.
2. 50. In respect of the allegation that the contracts of two teachers at the nursery school in the Godoy Cruz municipality were terminated, the Committee takes note of the Government's comment that the workers in question were not dismissed but that their contracts with the municipality were simply not extended as has been the case for other workers; and that there is no documentary evidence in the Godoy Cruz municipal archives that these workers held office as trade union leaders.
3. 51. On the basis of the supporting documentation submitted by the Government, the Committee observes that the persons in question were indeed not dismissed but that the fixed-term contracts they signed with the Godoy Cruz nursery school No. 1 were not extended and that the anti-union nature of the non-extension invoked by the complainant is not substantiated by any documentary or circumstantial evidence (e.g. combative attitudes on the shop stewards' part, recruitment of other persons subsequent to non-extension, etc.), but by mere value judgements (according to the complainant organization this measure is intended to intimidate other union members).
4. 52. In these circumstances, the Committee considers that the present case does not call for further examination.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 53. In the light of its foregoing conclusions, the Committee invites the Governing Body to decide that the present case does not call for further examination.