Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1992, published 79th ILC session (1992)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Poland (Ratification: 1957)

The Committee notes the Government's report and the new Acts of 23 May 1991 concerning trade unions, employers' organisations and the settlement of collective labour disputes.

It nevertheless requests the Government to supply information in its next report on the application of the following Articles of the Convention.

1. Article 2. Right of workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, to establish organisations. The Committee notes that, in accordance with the new Act concerning trade unions, officials in highly responsible positions, whose activities are considered to be related to the formulation of policy or who exercise functions of direction, and workers whose tasks are largely confidential (section 42 of the new Act of 1991) still do not have the right to establish or join trade unions.

The Committee recalls that agents of the public authority who are in responsible positions, who exercise functions of direction or whose tasks are confidential, should have the right to organise. It thus requests the Government to supply information on the manner in which the officials referred to in section 40 of the Act of 1982 defend their professional interests in practice, in view of the fact that former section 41 of that Act, which provided for the possibility for such officials to establish works councils, has been repealed by the new Act concerning trade unions.

It also requests the Government to indicate in its next report the reasons for which members of youth brigades serving in the Civil Protection Service are prohibited from establishing trade unions (section 40 of the Act concerning trade unions). It points out that under the terms of Article 9 of the Convention, only the armed forces and the police may be excluded from the right to organise.

2. Article 3. Right of trade unions to organise their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes. In accordance with the Act of 23 May 1991 concerning trade unions, the national inter-trade union organisation and the national union that is representative of workers in the majority of establishments enjoy more rights to defend the interests of their members than base-level trade unions.

The Committee requests the Government to indicate how the national inter-trade union organisation and the national union that is representative of workers in the majority of establishments are defined and composed and how they function in practice. It also requests the Government to provide information on the relations between the above unions and the base-level trade unions.

3. Noting that the new Act concerning trade unions provides, in section 45, that the national inter-trade union organisation and the national union that is representative of workers in the majority of establishments shall determine by agreement, until 30 September 1991, the principles governing the use and division of transferred property of the association of trade unions and that, in the absence of an agreement within the specified period, the principles in question shall be determined by order of the Council of Ministers, the Committee requests the Government to indicate whether such an agreement was concluded or whether the Council of Ministers determined the question by order, and to supply any relevant text.