Definitive Report - Report No 77, 1964

Case No 382 (Greece) - Complaint date: 19-MAR-64 - Closed

1. 37. The complaint by the Pan-Hellenic Confederation of Wage-Earning and Salaried Employees is contained in a communication dated 19 March 1964 addressed directly to the I.L.O. This complaint was transmitted to the Government for its observations by a letter dated 1 April 1964, and the Government replied by a communication dated 15 May 1964.
2. 38. 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. 39. The complainants allege that, under Act No. 3755/1957, all Greek workers, whether or not belonging to a trade union, are required to pay an annual contribution equivalent to one day's wage for an unskilled worker to the "Workers' Club", a public institution under government supervision. The trade union organisations are then entitled, in principle, to financial assistance from the Workers' Club towards their operating costs.
2. 40. Together with all other workers, according to the complainants' statement, the members of the Pan-Hellenic Confederation of Wage-Earning and Salaried Employees pay their contributions to the Workers' Club. However, the Workers' Club not only refuses to subsidise the complainant organisation in proportion to its membership, but withholds all financial assistance.
3. 41. The complainants go on to state that this situation creates considerable operating difficulties for their Confederation. Quite apart from the injustice involved, it constitutes discrimination against the complainant organisation, which has been refused any form of subsidy while the General Labour Confederation receives sums totalling millions of drachmas per year from the Workers' Club. The complainants consider that this practice means that only the General Labour Confederation is regarded as representative.
4. 42. The Government's reply observations regarding the system of contributions and subsidies concerned in this complaint.
5. 43. It further states that the complainant organisation represents only a small number of workers and that, under the articles of the Workers' Club, only the most representative organisations are entitled to financial assistance from it.
6. 44. The Government concludes by stating that, if the complainant organisation feels victimised or considers that existing legislation is applied to it unfavourably or wrongfully, it is free to appeal to the Council of State, as other organisations have with success. It is stated that the Pan-Hellenic Confederation of Wage-Earning and Salaried Employees has not made use of that possibility.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

1. 45. The Government is quite correct in its statement that the Committee has on several occasions dealt with the situation arising in Greece as a result of subsidies paid to trade union organisations by the Workers' Club. In this connection the Committee has reached detailed conclusions which it would be pointless to reiterate, even though it has no ground for modifying them. I
2. 46. The Government's reply the opportunities to appeal available to it. When the Committee has been called upon to examine similar situations in the past it has pointed out that while, in view of the nature of its responsibilities, it cannot consider itself bound by any rule that national procedures of redress must be exhausted, such as appeals, for instance to international claims tribunals, it must have regard in examining the merits of a case to the fact that a national remedy before an independent tribunal whose procedure offers appropriate guarantees has not been pursued.
3. 47. In the present instance, in view of the fact that, according to the Government's statement, other organisations have successfully appealed in similar circumstances to the Council of State, the Committee considers that the complaining organisation, which has made no use of its opportunity to lodge such an appeal, has made no real effort to obtain redress for the injustice it believes it has suffered.

The Committee's recommendations

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