Definitive Report - Report No 105, 1968

Case No 467 (Dominican Republic) - Complaint date: 17-FEB-66 - Closed

1. 21. This matter was considered by the Committee at its session in February 1967, when it submitted an interim report theron, in paragraphs 259 to 270 of its 95th Report, which was approved by the Governing Body at its 168th Session (February-March 1967).
2. 22. In that report the Committee submitted its final conclusions on some of the allegations made in the complaints, but requested the Government to furnish its observations on other aspects of the case. The following paragraphs deal only with those aspects still outstanding.
3. 23. In a communication dated 2 April 1968 the Government sent the additional observations which it had been asked to supply.
4. 24. The Dominican Republic has ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

1. 25. In its telegram dated 17 February 1966 the National Confederation of Free Workers (CONATRAL) alleged, without providing any particulars, that the rights of the free and democratic trade union organisations in the Dominican Republic were being violated by political mobs with aims foreign to Dominican culture and tradition and that trade unionists had been murdered. " Our bases ", the telegram also stated, " are destroyed with impunity, our principles violently strangled; terror, menace and death are methods regularly used to bring about our destruction; political alliances join to eliminate us."
2. 26. In two communications, of 18 and 28 February 1966, the Inter-American Regional Organisation of Workers (of the I.C.F.T.U.) (O.R.I.T.) expressed support for the complaint brought by CONATRAL and said that the latter organisation had been attacked by extremist groups in an effort to impose upon it attitudes and positions, which, in the opinion of the O.R.I.T, would in no way contribute to re-establishing the atmosphere of peace and tranquillity so badly needed by the Dominican Republic. The same extremist groups were said to have taken their revenge by means of a bomb attack on CONATRAL headquarters.
3. 27. The Independent Union of Labourers, in part of its communication dated 30 March 1966, alleged that in the country there was no respect for the most elementary rights of free trade unions and that mobs taking orders from political parties attacked anybody not sharing their ideas. In a communication of 2 May 1966 the same organisation supplied additional information in the form of a newspaper article which had appeared in San Juan (Puerto Rico) on 28 March 1966. This article reported statements by an " Inter-Union Committee of Dominican Trade Union Leaders in Exile " to the effect that democratic and anti-Communist trade union leaders from Santo Domingo were arriving daily in Puerto Rico, fleeing from brutal persecution by the " red mob ", whose activities the provisional Government had not prevented. The Independent Union of Labourers added that both its own General Secretary and other high-level officers of the free and democratic trade union movement were being persecuted and turned out of their jobs by " mobs "; and also that the Sugar Corporation had been handed over to a political party, so that party members only could obtain employment there.
4. 28. At its sessions in May and November 1967, and in February 1968, the Committee postponed consideration of these allegations, as it had not received the Government's observations.
5. 29. In a communication dated 2 April 1968 the Government forwards the comments made on this matter by the Ministry of Labour. According to the latter the allegations made by CONATRAL merely reflect the disquiet and anxiety felt by those persons in CONATRAL who were involved in political manoeuvres alien to the purposes of the organisation and as a result of the serious crisis that the Dominican Republic had lived through following the revolutionary outbreak of 24 April 1965, which gave rise to a military occupation by forces of the Organisation of American States. " A proof of this assertion ", continues the Ministry of Labour, " is that, once order had been re-established and the country had returned to normal, this workers' organisation had not even the vaguest reasons for complaint concerning its stability and development."
6. 30. The Ministry goes on to say that, the situation being as described above, if any trade union leader left the country (and the Ministry had no knowledge of any such departure), it would have been of his own free will.
7. 31. The Ministry finally states that the allegations of discrimination in employment engaged in by the Sugar Corporation are undoubtedly attributable to the same reasons, which no longer hold good.
8. 32. The Committee observes that the allegations made by the complainants seem to have referred to events occurring during an obviously abnormal period, as a result of serious political convulsions, and the consequences thereof, as far as the allegations are concerned, have now been surmounted. In addition, the complaints are formulated in very general terms, and the complainants did not make use of their right to submit fuller details in support of their allegations relating to the violation of trade union rights.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 33. In these circumstances the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that this case does not call for further examination.