Preamble
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,
Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met in its Sixty-seventh Session on 3 June 1981, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to the promotion of collective bargaining, which is the fourth item on the agenda of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of a Recommendation supplementing the Collective Bargaining Convention, 1981,
adopts this nineteenth day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-one, the following Recommendation, which may be cited as the Collective Bargaining Recommendation, 1981:
I. Methods of Application
- 1. The provisions of this Recommendation may be applied by national laws or regulations, collective agreements, arbitration awards or in any other manner consistent with national practice.
II. Means of Promoting Collective Bargaining
- 2. In so far as necessary, measures adapted to national conditions should be taken to facilitate the establishment and growth, on a voluntary basis, of free, independent and representative employers' and workers' organisations.
- 3. As appropriate and necessary, measures adapted to national conditions should be taken so that--
- (a) representative employers' and workers' organisations are recognised for the purposes of collective bargaining;
- (b) in countries in which the competent authorities apply procedures for recognition with a view to determining the organisations to be granted the right to bargain collectively, such determination is based on pre-established and objective criteria with regard to the organisations' representative character, established in consultation with representative employers' and workers' organisations.
- 4.
- (1) Measures adapted to national conditions should be taken, if necessary, so that collective bargaining is possible at any level whatsoever, including that of the establishment, the undertaking, the branch of activity, the industry, or the regional or national levels.
- (2) In countries where collective bargaining takes place at several levels, the parties to negotiations should seek to ensure that there is co-ordination among these levels.
- 5.
- (1) Measures should be taken by the parties to collective bargaining so that their negotiators, at all levels, have the opportunity to obtain appropriate training.
- (2) Public authorities may provide assistance to workers' and employers' organisations, at their request, for such training.
- (3) The content and supervision of the programmes of such training should be determined by the appropriate workers' or employers' organisation concerned.
- (4) Such training should be without prejudice to the right of workers' and employers' organisations to choose their own representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining.
- 6. Parties to collective bargaining should provide their respective negotiators with the necessary mandate to conduct and conclude negotiations, subject to any provisions for consultations within their respective organisations.
- 7.
- (1) Measures adapted to national conditions should be taken, if necessary, so that the parties have access to the information required for meaningful negotiations.
- (2) For this purpose--
- (a) public and private employers should, at the request of workers' organisations, make available such information on the economic and social situation of the negotiating unit and the undertaking as a whole, as is necessary for meaningful negotiations; where the disclosure of some of this information could be prejudicial to the undertaking, its communication may be made conditional upon a commitment that it would be regarded as confidential to the extent required; the information to be made available may be agreed upon between the parties to collective bargaining;
- (b) the public authorities should make available such information as is necessary on the over-all economic and social situation of the country and the branch of activity concerned, to the extent to which the disclosure of this information is not prejudicial to the national interest.
- 8. Measures adapted to national conditions should be taken, if necessary, so that the procedures for the settlement of labour disputes assist the parties to find a solution to the dispute themselves, whether the dispute is one which arose during the negotiation of agreements, one which arose in connection with the interpretation and application of agreements or one covered by the Examination of Grievances Recommendation, 1967.
III. Final Provision
- 9. This Recommendation does not revise any existing Recommendation.
