Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1991, published 78th ILC session (1991)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Pakistan (Ratification: 1952)

The Committee notes with regret that the Government's report has not been received. It must therefore repeat its previous observation.

The Committee notes the Government's report and the information that it supplied to the Conference Committee in June 1988. The Committee also notes the observations made by the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions. The Committee recalls that in the past it has identified divergencies between the Convention and legislative provisions relating to the employees of the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (PIAC), to wage-fixation in the banking and financial sector, and to the position of workers in export processing zones (EPZs). Wage-fixation in the banking and financial sector The Committee has, on several occasions, drawn attention to the fact that sections 38A to 38I of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 as amended empower the Government to constitute a wage commission to fix wage rates and determine all the other terms and conditions of service in banks and in any other sector that may be specified by a government notification, and that these provisions restrict the exercise of voluntary negotiation as established under Article 4. The Committee notes that, according to the Government's report, employees of banks and other financial institutions enjoy freedom of association and that in all these establishments the sole collective bargaining agent is determined by secret ballot. The bargaining agent is entitled to present to the employer a charter of demands relating to the employees' wages and conditions of service. These demands are then submitted to the wage commission which is presided over by a High Court Judge, and which gives the parties, namely the bargaining agent and the management, the opportunity to present their arguments. The Government states that on the last occasion that a Commission was established (1984) some 51 unions were invited to make submissions to the Commission before it reached its decision. The Committee notes that, in the opinion of the Government, the decisions of the Commission are arrived at having full regard to the process of collective bargaining. According to the Government, this is borne out by the fact: (i) that the social partners are given the opportunity to discuss wages and employment issues through the agency of the Commission; (ii) that on no occasion has any party to the process questioned the impartiality of the system; and (iii) that the Commission has never made an award which lacked the support of either workers or management. The Committee recalls that the principle of voluntary negotiation implies the establishment of procedures encouraging discussions between the parties with the aim of concluding agreements that are freely arrived at. In the Committee's opinion, if, in order to facilitate negotiation, bodies and procedures are established, their intervention should not result in restrictions on the scope of negotiation or the independence of the parties. Accordingly, the Committee requests the Government to keep it informed of any future developments in this area - in particular, whether a further Commission has been established, the outcome of its deliberations, and the reactions of the parties to that outcome. Export Processing Zones With regard to restrictions upon the right to organise and to bargain collectively for workers in EPZs, the Committee invites the Government to refer to its comments under Convention No. 87, as follows: The Committee notes the Government's report for the period to 30 June 1989, but has not received its report for the period to 30 June 1990. The Committee also notes the comments of the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions (PNFTU) in communications dated 21 December 1989 and 24 February 1990. The Government has not sent any observations on these comments to the Committee. In its 1989 observation, the Committee had referred to divergencies between the Convention and legislative provisions which deny certain workers the right to establish trade union organisations, restrict the right to strike, permit the supervision of trade union funds by the Registrar and limit the right of representation of minority unions. Trade union rights - Pakistan International Airlines Corporation In its report, the Government indicates that section 10 of the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Act, 1956 had been amended so as to enable workers employed by the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (PIAC) to take part in trade union activities under the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. The Committee notes with interest that the Government has now taken measures to remove the ban on trade union membership and activities at PIAC to which the Committee had been drawing attention for several years. It also asks the Government to send it a copy of the relevant legislation, as promised in its report. Trade union rights - Senior public servants In its 1989 observation, and on many previous occasions, the Committee expressed its concern about the exclusion of public servants of Grade 16 and above from the scope of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, and, through a direct request, had asked the Government to provide certain further information as to the number of workers affected by this ban and as to the nature and activities of the associations to which, according to the Government, such officials were entitled to belong. In its report the Government indicates that in 1986, 17,652 (9.39 per cent) out of a total of 187,925 federal public servants were classified as Grade 16 or above. It also indicates that the effect of this exclusion is to place senior public servants in the same position as managerial staff in the private sector. The Government has not, however, supplied the requested information as to the number, size and activities of the "associations" to which public servants of Grade 16 and above may belong. The Committee requests the Government to include this information in its next report. Trade union rights - Export processing zones In its 1989 observation, the Committee noted that on the basis of section 25 of the Export Processing Zones Authority Ordinance, 1980, the Government had entirely exempted all export processing zones from the scope of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, whilst section 4 of the Export Processing Zone (Control of Employment) Rules, 1982, deprived workers in such zones of the right to strike or to take other forms of industrial action. The Committee considered that these provisions are not consistent with the requirements of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. In its report the Government indicates that it will give consideration to the possibility of removing these restrictions as part of its general policy of allowing full trade union activity in the country. It has not, however, supplied any subsequent information as to the outcome of its deliberations on this matter. In the circumstances, the Committee must call upon the Government to keep it informed as to the steps it proposes to take to remove these restrictions on trade union membership and activity which are clearly incompatible with the requirements of the Convention. Recourse to strikes For some years the Committee has been drawing the Government's attention to the fact that certain of the restrictions on recourse to strikes which are set out in sections 32 and 33 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance seem to interfere with the right to strike. The Committee notes that section 32(2) of the Ordinance enables the Government to prohibit any strike or lock-out where it has lasted for more than 30 days, or where the Government is satisfied that continuance of the strike or lock-out is causing serious hardship to the community or is prejudicial to the national interest. Section 33(1) on the other hand enables the Government to prohibit any strike or lock-out, before or after its commencement, where the dispute is of "national importance" or involves "public utility services" within the meaning of the Schedule to the Ordinance. These restrictions appear to the Committee to go beyond what is necessary in order to maintain services whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety or the health of the whole or part of the population. It must, therefore, urge the Government to ensure that these provisions are amended so as to bring them into full conformity with the requirements of the Convention. Right of representation of minority unions On a number of occasions the Committee has noted that workers in minority unions cannot be represented by the union of their choice in relation to individual grievances, and has pointed out to the Government that this situation is not compatible with the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention. The Government indicates that it knows of no case where a collective bargaining agent has refused to represent the interests of a member of a minority union - on the contrary, collective bargaining agents often give preference to the claims of members of minority unions with a view to encouraging them to switch allegiance. The Government does not, however, consider that it would be appropriate to permit minority unions to represent the individual interests of their members because to do so would be to jeopardise and destabilise the position of the collective bargaining agent. The Committee notes the views of the Government on this matter, but must reiterate that full conformity with the requirements of the Convention means that members of minority unions should have the right to be represented by their own union in relation to their individual claims if they so choose. Promotion of union activists as an anti-union tactic The Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions (PNFTU) alleges that a number of foreign-owned companies in the banking and financial services sector have been pursuing a policy of "promoting" their employees so as to remove them from the category of "workman" in section 2 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, and placing them instead in the category of "employer". According to the PNFTU, these "promotions" are purely formal in character and are designed to weaken the position of trade unions by virtue of the fact that under the Ordinance "employers" and "workers" may not belong to the same union. The Committee has pointed out in the past that it is not necessarily incompatible with the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention to deny managerial or supervisory employees the right to belong to the same trade unions as other workers. This is, however, subject to two provisos: first, that they have the right to form their own associations to defend their interests and, secondly, that the categories of managerial staff and employees in positions of confidence are not so broadly defined that the organisations of other workers in the enterprise or branch of activity are weakened by depriving them of a substantial proportion of their present or potential membership (1983 General Survey, paragraph 131). In order to enable it to make an informed assessment of the compatibility of section 2 of the Ordinance with the requirements of the Convention, the Committee would ask the Government to provide an indication of the proportion of the workforce who are regarded as being "employers" within the terms of that section. It also asks the Government to provide information as to the number and size of organisations which have been formed in order to represent the interests of such persons, and to provide its observations on the comments of the PNFTU in relation to this matter. In view of the fact that the Committee has been commenting on many of these matters for many years, it expresses the firm hope that the Government will make every effort to take the measures which are necessary to give full effect to the Convention, and that it will do so in the near future.

The Committee trusts that the Government will take the necessary measures in the near future concerning the matters discussed above in order to give full effect to the requirements of the Convention.