Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2005, published 95th ILC session (2006)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Niger (Ratification: 1962)

The Committee notes the Government’s report.

Article 4 of the Convention. 1. In its last observation, the Committee asked the Government to respond to comments sent by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) on 23 September 2003. The ICFTU observed, inter alia, that the labour legislation applies to very few workers because 95 per cent of workers are in the informal rural and urban informal economy, where the Government does not enforce workers’ rights. The Committee notes the Government’s reply that, although most workers work in subsistence agriculture and the informal economy, the Labour Code establishes and protects the right to organize of all workers. The Committee points out, however, that section 2 of the Labour Code defines a worker as "anyone who has undertaken to carry out his/her occupational activity, in exchange for remuneration, under the direction and authority of some other natural or legal person, whether public or private". The Committee requests the Government to indicate whether this definition excludes self-employed workers from the scope of the Labour Code, thus excluding a large proportion of workers in the informal sector of the economy from the provisions on freedom of association and collective bargaining in particular.

2. The Committee also notes the Government’s statement that it is forbidden for employers to deduct trade union dues from the wages of their employees. The Committee is of the view that this amounts to a restriction of the right to collective bargaining and accordingly asks the Government to envisage the possibility of ensuring that the parties themselves may determine, by agreement, how trade union dues are collected.