Definitive Report - Report No 67, 1963

Case No 299 (Greece) - Complaint date: 25-MAY-62 - Closed

1. 90. The complaint of the Athens Union of Restaurant, Bar and Entertainment Personnel is contained in a telegram dated 25 May 1962 addressed directly to the I.L.O. In a letter of 7 June 1962 the Director-General informed the complaining organisation of its right to present additional information in support of its complaint within one month, but it did not avail itself of this right.
2. 91. In a letter dated 7 June 1962 the Director-General communicated the complaint to the Government of Greece for its observations.
3. 92. The Government forwarded its reply in a communication dated 21 July 1962.
4. 93. Greece 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. 94. The complaining organisation alleges that the Government has instituted a system designed to break strikes in the flour mills by training military personnel in flour manufacturing methods. The complaining organisation considers that this would constitute a violation of the right to strike, recognised by the national Constitution, and therefore of trade union rights.
2. 95. In its reply the Government first asserts that it has always respected the workers' trade union rights in general and the right to strike in particular.
3. 96. In the specific case invoked by the complaining organisation, the Government formally denies having had any intention to intervene in the strikes that might occur among mill workers, its only preoccupation being as far as possible to ensure the distribution of a commodity which, in an economically weak country like Greece, is a first essential.
4. 97. For this purpose, and in order to meet an exceptional situation, the Government reserves the right to call in volunteers for flour manufacture. It asserts, however, that the resort to such a measure is dictated by the Government's duty to assure the livelihood of citizens alone, and is not aimed at favouring employers or thwarting the activities of workers or their unions.

98. The Committee, considering that allegations regarding the right to strike lie within its competence in so far, but only in so far, as they affect the exercise of trade union rights, recommends the Governing Body to draw the Greek Government's attention to the fact that the employment of the armed forces or of another group of persons to perform duties which have been suspended as a result of a labour dispute can-if the strike is lawful-be justified only by the need to ensure the working of services or industries whose suspension would lead to an acute crisis and that the utilisation by the Government of labour drawn from outside the trade, with a view to replacing the striking workers, entails a risk of derogation from the right to strike which may affect the free exercise of trade union rights.