Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2013, published 103rd ILC session (2014)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Argentina (Ratification: 1956)

The Committee notes the Government’s reply to the comments of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Confederation of Workers of Argentina (CTA) of 2011, particularly regarding the alleged violation of the right to collective bargaining in the sugar industry, in which it indicates that: (i) the process of the negotiation, conclusion and approval of enterprise agreements in the sugar sector has been conducted in parallel and in an inclusive and non-exclusive manner with the process at the national level; (ii) as from 2007, during negotiations in the sugar sector it was possible to establish a national bargaining forum based on the mutual recognition of the parties and the administrative authorities of the representative social partners at the national level; and (iii) the Ministry of Labour accepted and recognized as valid the objective parameters that the parties on both sides determined with regard to composition and functioning of the bargaining commission envisaged in section 4 of Act No. 23546, and there were no challenges to it.

The Committee also notes the comments of the ITUC and the CTA in 2013, which refer to issues already examined by the Committee in the past, as well as matters that are being examined in the context of the application of the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).

Finally, the Committee notes the comments of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) in 2013 indicating, among other matters, that collective bargaining in the private sector has been conducted in an identical form to that followed for the past decade, that it covers almost all sectors and that only a part of rural sector is excluded. The Committee requests the Government to provide information in its next report on the application of the Convention in the part of the rural sector referred to by the CGT.