Definitive Report - Report No 71, 1963

Case No 320 (Pakistan) - Complaint date: 31-DEC-62 - Closed

1. 38. The complaint of the Bhutta Village Union Committee is contained in a communication addressed to the I.L.O on 31 December 1962. The Government furnished its observations on the complaint in a letter dated 2 May 1963.
2. 39. Pakistan has ratified both 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. 40. It is alleged that the members of the complaining organisation are being threatened by the employers with dismissal from their work as dockers if they do not carry cards issued by the Karachi Port Dock Workers' Union. The complainants broke away from this union and registered an independent union of their own. They allege that the Labour Directorate refused to accept their statutory annual return and cancelled the registration. They then formed their present organisation, which they state was refused registration, whereupon they obtained an order in the District Court instructing the Trade Union Registrar to register the union; however, it is alleged, the Registrar, backed by the Central Labour Commission, still refused registration, so that " the matter has still remained sub judice ". It is further alleged that Mr. Khatib, the General Secretary of the Karachi Port Dock Workers' Union, is also a member of the Karachi Port Trust and is dictating policy to the Trust, and that Mr. Khatib retains for himself the bonuses which are payable to the dockers, all representations made to the Minister being disregarded.
2. 41. In its communication dated 2 May 1963 the Government declares that the persons submitting the complaint registered their rival trade union, the Karachi Stevedore and Port Workers' Union, in 1957, but that this registration was subsequently cancelled, as the organisation failed to submit its annual financial return in accordance with the Trade Unions Act, 1926. Its sponsors then tried, states the Government, to get the same union registered as the Karachi Harbour and Dock Labour Union, but the Trade Union Registrar made inquiries which led him to refuse registration. The union appealed to the Judge of the District Court in Karachi. According to the Government the Registrar submitted evidence that some of the signatures to the application for registration of the union were forged, whereupon the complainants withdrew their application and the court dismissed their complaint.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 42. This complaint raises two main issues: (a) that the Karachi Port Dock Workers' Union is using its strength to secure a closed shop or union shop in the dock industry; (b) that an organisation registered by the complainants was deregistered and that registration was refused to a second new organisation which they formed.
2. 43. In a number of previous cases, the Committee has declined to entertain allegations relating to union security arrangements, basing its reasoning on the statements in the report of the Committee on Industrial Relations set up by the International Labour Conference in 1949 that the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), could in no way be interpreted as authorising or prohibiting union security arrangements, such questions being matters for regulation in accordance with national practice. In the present case, it is not clear whether the majority union has succeeded in making union security arrangements or is trying to bring about such arrangements. But the Committee has declined also to entertain allegations in cases in which, in the absence of actual union security arrangements, one union " was exerting pressure to secure what, if it should be successful, would be a closed shop and a union security arrangement in fact ".
3. 44. In these circumstances the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that these aspects of the allegations do not call for further examination.
4. 45. With respect to the question of the deregistration of and refusal of registration to the two respective organisations set up by the complainants, the Committee observes that, under section 11 (1) of the (Indian) Trade Unions Act, 1926, applicable in Pakistan, appeals lie to the courts against decisions of the Trade Union Registrar to deregister or refuse registration to a trade union. This section was not affected by the amendments made to the Act in Pakistan in 1960. It is not known whether, when the first organisation formed by the complainants was deregistered, it appealed against the decision to the courts, but it could apparently have done so. It would appear from the Government's reply that, when registration was refused in the case of the second organisation which they formed, they appealed to the courts, but that the appeal was dismissed because in fact they withdrew their application when confronted by certain evidence.
5. 46. The Committee does not consider, therefore, that the complainants have furnished sufficient evidence to show that the successive cancellation and refusal of registration have, in this particular case, infringed freedom of association and, more specifically, the right of workers to form organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation, guaranteed by Article 2 of the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), ratified by Pakistan, or the principle embodied in Article 4 of that Convention that workers' organisations shall not be liable to be dissolved or suspended by administrative authority.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 47. In all the circumstances the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that the case as a whole does not call for further examination.