Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2021, published 110th ILC session (2022)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Belize (Ratification: 1983)

The Committee notes with deep concern that the Government’s report has not been received. It is therefore bound to repeat its previous comments. The Committee informs the Government that, if it has not supplied replies to the points raised by 1 September 2022, then it may proceed with the examination of the application of the Convention on the basis of the information at its disposal at its next session.

Repetition

Article 3 of the Convention. Compulsory arbitration. The Committee recalls that in its previous comments it had requested the Government to amend the Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act 1939 (SDESA), as amended on several occasions, which empowers the authorities to refer a collective dispute to compulsory arbitration, to prohibit a strike or to terminate a strike in services that cannot be considered essential in the strict sense of the term, including the banking sector, civil aviation, port authority, postal services, social security scheme and the petroleum sector. The Committee notes with regret from the information provided by the Government that while the Schedule to the SDESA was amended twice in 2015, the long-standing comments of the Committee were not addressed. Instead, the two amendments expanded the field of application of the SDESA and added to its Schedule the “port services involving the loading or unloading of a ship’s cargo”, which are also services that do not constitute essential services in the strict sense of the term – that is those the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole of part of the population. The Committee requests the Government to amend the Schedule to the SDESA so as to permit compulsory arbitration or a prohibition on strikes only in services that are essential in the strict sense of the term, and to provide information on all progress made in this regard.

The Committee expects that the Government will make every effort to take the necessary action in the near future.