Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1995, published 83rd ILC session (1996)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Fiji (Ratification: 1974)

The Committee notes the information provided by the Government in its report.

1. Article 2 of the Convention. In its previous comments, the Committee had stressed the need to adopt specific measures, particularly through legislation, to guarantee adequate protection (accompanied by sufficiently effective and dissuasive sanctions) to workers' organizations against any act of interference by employers or their organizations. The Government indicates that workers' organizations have made submissions to it on the pieces of legislation that need to be amended in this respect. These will be looked into by the Government before appropriate recommendations are made to the Labour Advisory Board.

The Committee requests the Government to keep it informed of the content of these recommendations after their submission to the Labour Advisory Board.

2. Articles 3 and 4. (a) In relation to the previous comments of the Fiji Trade Union Congress (FTUC) that the Tripartite Forum had not been reactivated for some time, the Committee notes the Government's statement that the Tripartite Forum has now been reactivated and the parties are working out the terms of reference of the Forum. It is envisaged that the Forum's functions will also include wider social and economic issues, in addition to labour matters.

(b) In response to the FTUC's previous comments that collective bargaining was hampered by employer refusal to recognize independent unions, an example of which was the Vatukoula Joint Mining Company refusing to recognize a registered Fiji Mineworkers' Union, the Government states that the Commissioner of Inquiry into the Vatukoula mines has submitted his report to the Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations and details of that report have not been released as yet. The Committee requests the Government to keep it informed of the conclusions of the Commissioner's report once it has been made public.

(c) In its previous comments, the Committee had noted that the Trade Union (Recognition) Act was silent as to the position of a majority union which did not cover 50 per cent of the employees in a bargaining unit and it had recalled that if under a system of nominating an exclusive bargaining agent there was no union covering more than 50 per cent of the workers, collective bargaining rights should be granted to all the unions in this unit, at least on behalf of their own members (1994 General Survey on freedom of association and collective bargaining, paragraph 241).

The Government points out that with the amendment of the above Act, there are now a multiplicity of unions in one undertaking which are all granted bargaining rights. The Committee requests the Government to indicate in its next report which provisions of the Trade Union (Recognition) Act have been amended to extend collective bargaining rights to all unions in a bargaining unit even if none of them covers 50 per cent of the employees in this unit.

3. Article 4. The Committee had noted previously that section 10 of the Counter-Inflation (Remuneration) Act allowed for the restriction or regulation, by order of the Prices and Incomes Board, of remuneration of any kind, and stipulated that any agreement or arrangement which did not respect these limitations would be illegal and deemed to be an offence. The Committee had considered, however, that the powers vested under the Act in the Prices and Incomes Board did not meet the criteria for acceptable limitations on voluntary collective bargaining. The Committee would therefore ask the Government to keep it informed of any application in practice of section 10 of the Act.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 1996.]