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

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Croatia (Ratification: 1991)

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous comments.

Repetition

Article 3 of the Convention. Right of employers’ and workers’ organizations to organize their activities and to formulate their programmes. The Committee notes the adoption of the new Labour Act on 4 December 2009 (Act No. 3635) and, in particular, that, under section 284 of the newly adopted Labour Act, strikes in the armed forces, police, state administration and public services are regulated by a separate law. Observing that, according to the ITUC, the special law that will regulate this matter has not yet been enacted, the Committee trusts that the relevant piece of legislation will be adopted in the near future and will take fully into account the freedom of association principles on this matter (see General Survey of 2012 on the fundamental Conventions concerning rights at work in light of the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, 2008, paragraphs 127–141). The Committee requests the Government to provide information in its next report on any developments in this regard.

Right of employers’ and workers’ organizations to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom and to organize their administration and activities. The Committee previously recalled that, since 1996, it had been commenting over the issue of the distribution of trade union assets and had been requesting the Government to determine the criteria for their division. In its previous observation, the Committee expressed the firm hope that, given that the representativeness criteria had already been defined, the Government would take the necessary measures in the very near future to address this issue.

The Committee notes that the Government indicates in its report that: (i) the new count of the unions’ membership was completed as early as 2009; (ii) the required formal inter-union agreement on property division entered into by the unions’ central bodies has still not been reached; and (iii) currently, the union property is to the largest extent being used by the Union of Autonomous Trade Unions of Croatia (UATUC), a smaller portion of real estate belongs to the graphics industry, school and civil service trade unions, and the remaining central union bodies operate out of leased properties, except for the Croatian Association of Trade Unions to which the UATUC gave its premises. In this respect, the Committee hopes that the parties concerned will reach an agreement on the distribution of trade union assets in the near future and requests the Government to provide in its next report any information thereon.

Finally, the Committee notes the comments submitted by the Association of Croatian Trade Unions (MATICA) concerning the Representativeness Act, which will be dealt with within the framework of the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), as soon as the Government has provided its observations thereon.