Effect given to the recommendations of the committee and the Governing Body - Report No 321, June 2000

Case No 1997 (Brazil) - Complaint date: 16-OCT-98 - Closed

Effect given to the recommendations of the Committee and the Governing Body

1. 19. The Committee last examined this case, which concerns interference by the authorities in the application of a collective agreement, at its meeting in November 1999 [see 318th Report, paras. 16-18]. At that time the Committee requested the Government "to keep it informed of whether the enterprises of the Puerto Alegre port sector [had] denounced the collective agreement as a result of the meeting to which the complainant objected [called by the Executive Group for Port Modernization] and whether sanctions [had] been applied to them for complying with the agreement".
2. 20. In its communication of 10 April 2000, the Government states that it was not the National Ministry of Labour that had denounced the collective agreement but the Regional Labour Delegation of the State of Río Grande do Sul. The latter had recognized the unlawful nature of a number of clauses in the collective agreement and had notified the parties concerned accordingly, urging them to adhere to the law. After lengthy negotiations, the parties promised the Office of the Regional Prosecutor for Labour to regularize the clauses that had led to the denunciation of the agreement, in order to avoid a lawsuit. The Regional Delegation also asked the trade union organizations that had signed the collective greement to correct the irregularities therein, to which it got the parties to agree. The trade unions themselves recognized the unlawfulness of the clauses that had led to the denunciation of the agreement. The collective agreement had in any case already expired, and the parties concerned agreed that they would meet the commitments that they had entered into with the Regional Delegation and the Office of the Regional Prosecutor as soon as the new collective agreement, which was currently in the process of negotiation, came into force.
3. 21. The Committee takes note of this information.