Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1997, published 86th ILC session (1998)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Trinidad and Tobago (Ratification: 1963)

The Committee notes from the Government's report that there has been no change in the status of the application of this Convention.

The Committee recalls that for many years now it has indicated the need to amend section 59(4)(a) of the Industrial Relations Act so as to enable a simple majority of the voters in a bargaining unit (excluding those workers not taking part in the vote) to call a strike and to amend sections 61 and 65 to ensure that any resort to the courts by the Ministry of Labour, or by one party only, to end a strike is limited to cases of strikes in essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is to say, those in which the strike would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population, or in cases of acute national crisis. The Committee trusts that the Government will take the necessary measures in the very near future to amend the Industrial Relations Act so as to bring it into conformity with the Convention and requests the Government to indicate the progress made in this regard in its next report.