Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2015, published 105th ILC session (2016)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Solomon Islands (Ratification: 2012)

Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. Legislative matters. The Committee notes the Government’s first report and wishes to draw the Government’s attention to the legal provisions which are not in conformity with the Convention and would need to be amended in order to:

• -make the Trade Unions Act (TUA) applicable to all workers irrespective of their contractual status, including independent and outsourced workers and workers without an employment contract, as well as to prison staff and fire services (section 2 et seq. of the TUA);
• -ensure that the fine imposable upon an employer who discriminates against a worker at the stage of recruitment for reasons of union membership or activities (section 60(3) of the TUA) is sufficiently dissuasive;
• -adopt provisions which: (i) provide adequate protection to workers, in particular to trade union officers and representatives, against anti-union discrimination in the course of employment, such as transfer, relocation and withdrawal of benefits; (ii) explicitly prohibit dismissal for reasons of trade union membership or activities; and (iii) set up rapid and impartial procedures as well as sufficiently effective and dissuasive sanctions against such acts; and
• -adopt provisions providing for full and adequate protection of workers’ and employers’ organizations against any acts of interference against each other, setting up rapid and impartial procedures as well as sufficiently effective and dissuasive sanctions against such acts.

Accordingly, the Committee requests the Government to take the necessary legislative and other measures, in consultation with the social partners, to bring the provisions of the TUA into full conformity with the Convention and to information on any measures taken in this regard.

In addition, the Committee requests the Government to provide further details on:

• -the role of labour inspection and other mechanisms empowered to examine complaints against anti-union discrimination and against allegations of interference of employers in workers’ organizations, especially concerning their accessibility, rapidity and independence;
• -the rule granting reversal of burden of proof for cases other than unfair dismissal;
• -the existing sanctions for interference by employers in workers’ organizations and for anti-union discrimination other than in recruitment;
• -legislative provisions and other measures regulating or promoting collective voluntary negotiation among the social partners; the powers of public authorities, if any, to intervene in collective negotiations between workers and employers; and the number of collective agreements concluded, specifying the sectors and the number of workers covered; and
• -legislative provisions and other measures regulating the procedure for recognition of trade unions in collective bargaining, in particular the criteria for the designation of bargaining agents, threshold of representativity, type and duration of recognition procedure, rights of minority unions, the possibility of creating groups of trade unions for bargaining purposes, and collective bargaining rights of employers’ organizations, including the role, if any, of the Chamber of Commerce.