Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2008, published 98th ILC session (2009)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Pakistan (Ratification: 1951)

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received and hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session.

The Committee recalls that its previous comments concerned the need to amend the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 2002. The Committee notes that the Industrial Relations Act, amending the IRO 2002, was adopted in November 2008 and that it will be an interim law, which will lapse on 30 April 2010. With reference to its observation, the Committee expresses the hope that the new legislation will take into account its previous comments with regard to the IRO 2002 and will ensure:

–      the right of workers to establish occupational or professional trade unions;

–      that the requirement of the minimum trade union membership previously set at 25 per cent of workers employed at the respective establishment or industry is lowered;

–      that subject to the internal rules of a trade union, persons who have been convicted for embezzlement or misappropriation of funds or for a criminal offence of a heinous nature within the meaning of the Pakistan Penal Code, such as theft, physical assault, murder, attempt to murder, etc., may become trade union members;

–      that the labour court no longer has the power to disqualify a trade union office bearer from holding any trade union office for the unexpired term of his or her office and for the term immediately following, for violation of its order to stop a strike and for committing an unfair labour practice broadly defined under section 64(1)(d) as an act of compelling or attempting to compel the employer to accept any demands by using, among others means, intimidation, coercion, pressure, threat, confinement or ouster from a place, dispossession, disconnection of telephone, water or power facilities. In this respect, the Committee recalls that such a sanction should only be possible where the strike prohibition in question is in conformity with the principle of freedom of association and should not be imposed if the action in question is peaceful. The Committee further recalls that conviction for an act, the nature of which is not such as to be prejudicial to the performance of trade union duties, should not constitute grounds for disqualification from trade union office. Thus, legislation, which establishes excessively broad ineligibility criteria by means of a long list, including acts, which have no real connection with the qualities of integrity required for the exercise of trade union office, is incompatible with the Convention (see General Survey of 1994 on freedom of association and collective bargaining, paragraph 120);

–      that the supervision of financial activities of trade unions is limited to the obligation of submitting periodic financial reports or is limited to exceptional cases, for example in order to investigate a complaint, or if there have been allegations of embezzlement (see General Survey, op. cit., paragraph 125);

–      the right of workers’ and/or employers’ organizations to be represented by lawyers in administrative or judicial proceeding should they so desire;

–      that the right to the check-off facilities and the right to call a strike are granted to all trade unions;

–      that a peaceful go-slow action is not considered to be a prohibited unfair labour practice and that no sanction may be imposed for participating in such action;

–      the right of workers’ organizations to exercise strike action in search of solutions to problems posed by major social and economic policy trends and to have recourse to sympathy strikes without penalty;

–      that workers are not deprived of their trade union organization by cancellation of its registration due to illegal activities previously carried out by one of its leaders. In this respect, the Committee considered that the union members should be able to rectify the situation by electing a new trade union officer;

–      that the following grounds for cancellation of trade union registration are lifted: trade union has not been a contestant in a referendum for the determination of the collective bargaining agent; or has not applied for determination of the collective bargaining agent within a specific period of time; or has secured less than 15 per cent of polled votes in a referendum for the determination of the collective bargaining agent (section 12(3)(ii), (iii) and (iv) of the IRO 2002);

–      that workers’ organizations are allowed to determine themselves whether they wish to join a federation; and

–      that the minimum requirement of ten trade unions, with at least one from each province, for establishment of a national federation is lowered.

Furthermore, the Committee once again asks the Government to indicate whether Presidential Ordinance No. IV of 1999, which amends the Anti-Terrorism Act by penalizing the creation of civil commotion, including illegal strikes or go-slows, with up to seven years’ imprisonment, is still in force.