Report in which the committee requests to be kept informed of development - Report No 311, November 1998

Case No 1954 (Côte d'Ivoire) - Complaint date: 19-FEB-98 - Closed

Allegations: Infringement of the right to demonstrate and of the inviolability of trade union premises, questioning of trade unionists, mass dismissals of workers and dismissals of staff delegates following strike action

1. 366. In a communication dated 19 February 1998, the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Côte d'Ivoire, Dignité, submitted a complaint of violations of the right to organize against the Government of Côte d'Ivoire.
2. 367. The Government sent its comments and observations on this complaint in a communication dated 26 May 1998.
3. 368. Côte d'Ivoire 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. The complainant's allegations

1. 369. In a communication dated 19 February 1998, the complainant confederation Dignité alleges violations of Conventions Nos. 87 and 98 by the Government of Côte d'Ivoire. According to the complainant, the violations relate to attacks on the headquarters of Dignité (broken windows, occupation of the premises by the police for a week); infringements of the right to exercise trade union activities, particularly of the right to demonstrate; ill-treatment and physical violence suffered by two employees of the Abidjan Ship Repair and Industrial Work Enterprise (CARENA) -- Mr. Blaise Tapé Blé, injured during a beating, and Mr. Laurent Djoro, slightly injured; and questioning of workers of the CARENA enterprise, namely Mr. Doh Kouassi, Mr. Kafalo Coulibaly, Mr. Alphonse Sehi, Mr. Blaize Goué Assomoi, Mr. Bi Tené and Mrs. Coulibaly Nagata. According to the allegations, these workers were arrested on 4 February 1998, subjected to ill-treatment and later released at 11 p.m.
2. 370. According to the complainant, these violations followed a peaceful protest march called by workers of the CARENA enterprise on 4 February 1998 to draw attention to the authorities' passive attitude with regard to finding a solution to the collective dispute going on between them and the enterprise's management. To be sure to get to the demonstration early, the workers decided to spend the night at the headquarters of Dignité, to which they were affiliated. In an attempt to stop the march being held, national police units under the command of a police superintendent from the third district of Abidjan, stormed the confederation's premises at 3 a.m. using truncheons and tear-gas grenades to break the French windows, seeking at all costs to oust the workers. As well as the damage it caused to the headquarters, the charge seriously injured one person, slightly injuring a number of others. The affiliated workers, together with Mr. Basile Mhan Gahé, the Secretary-General of Dignité and a number of permanent officials, were at the headquarters at the time of the attack. The police continued to occupy the headquarters of Dignité for a week, sending in relief officers when necessary.
3. 371. The complainant described the background to the situation in a memorandum supplemented by annexes. It explained that the CARENA workers went on strike on 5 March 1997 to call for the introduction of the wage scale applicable to shipbuilding and repair instead of that applicable to the mechanical engineering industry. The workers wished to end the wage discrimination they had suffered since 1952, when the enterprise was established. They asked to be treated in the same way as their European colleagues, even if it meant those colleagues receiving an expatriate bonus, which they found fair and reasonable.
4. 372. The workers had taken strike action -- in vain -- to achieve satisfaction on this issue in 1978, 1986, 1990, 1996 and 1997.
5. 373. In December 1996, however, the strike action had culminated in a memorandum of agreement according to which the CARENA enterprise was to be classified in its true sector of activity. The complainant annexes this memorandum of agreement, signed on 20 December 1996 by the Secretary-General of Dignité, the staff delegates and the employer, the general manager of the enterprise, in the presence of the director of the office of the Minister of Employment. In it, the general manager of the CARENA enterprise confirmed that the principal activity of the enterprise was shipbuilding and repair. However, given that the allied trades collective agreement of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire does not include a branch of activity relating to shipbuilding and repair, the workers requested that the matter be put before the industrial advisory board with a view to its establishment. Following the meeting, it was decided that the advisory board would meet on 15 January 1997 at the latest and that work would resume at 9 a.m. on Monday, 23 December 1996.
6. 374. According to the complainant, this memorandum of agreement went unheeded and was not applied by the employer, whereas the workers did resume their activities on 23 December 1996.
7. 375. The complainant goes on to say that in fact on 14 January 1997 the industrial advisory board held a meeting during which it decided to refer the matter to the Permanent Independent Conciliation Committee (CIPC) made up of the National Committee of Ivorian Employers (CNPI), the General Union Workers of Côte d'Ivoire (UGTCI), the Federation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Côte d'Ivoire (FESACI) and Dignité. The Dignité confederation consistently asked that the case be studied by a joint committee made up of the workers and employers concerned under the supervision of experts from the Ministry of Employment.
8. 376. During the CIPC's first meeting, the permanent secretary of the CIPC, who is the Secretary-General of the employers (CNPI), asked the workers to give him time to seek advice from the regional office of the International Labour Office in Abidjan, in the interests of both the workers and the enterprise.
9. 377. On 26 February 1997, the permanent secretary of the CIPC went in person to the CARENA enterprise where he met the general manager of the enterprise and the staff delegates who were all members of Dignité. He explained to them that the wage scale for shipyards to which the workers aspired was utopian, that it existed nowhere else in the world and that during the first meeting there had been no question of anything other than granting certain advantages to the workers, certainly not a wage scale applicable to shipyards. The workers immediately decided to give notice of a new strike in order to communicate their dissatisfaction to the authorities. The law stipulates that six days' notice must be given before starting a strike to allow employers and the authorities to call the trade union to the negotiating table. However, according to the complainant, neither the employer nor the authorities reacted and, on 5 March 1997, the workers went on a peaceful strike -- each worker occupied his workstation wearing a red headband from 5 to 7 March.
10. 378. On 10 March, the employer commenced a lock-out. He closed the enterprise to workers and called in approximately 100 armed police. He also convened a meeting of staff delegates.
11. 379. The workers refused to allow the staff delegates to attend the meeting as long as the enterprise continued to be occupied by the police and the staff was subject to a lock-out. In their view the matter had nothing to do with the police but was an issue to be dealt with by the employer, and the trade union to which they were affiliated, with the assistance of the Ministry of Employment.
12. 380. On 20 March 1997, the employer posted a memorandum at the enterprise stating that in his view all of the CARENA staff had resigned and giving the names of the 300 dismissed workers. On 24 March, police presence was increased and the workers seated outside the enterprise were driven away with tear-gas grenades, it being the management's intention to bring in subcontracted workers to replace the strikers. Then, according to the complainant, as an expression of solidarity, the workers from the subcontracting enterprise Friedlander refused to replace the strikers. They appealed, on the one hand, to the enterprise to take part in negotiations and, on the other, to the striking workers to be flexible during the negotiations.
13. 381. On 25 and 26 March, the striking workers were once again attacked with tear gas and driven away from the enterprise. On the evening of 26 March they were summoned to the office of the Minister of Employment for a meeting during which the Minister allegedly told them that the Minister of Economy and Finance had confirmed to him that the CARENA enterprise did in fact come under the heading of shipbuilding, that they were right to claim the scale for shipbuilding and repair and that he intended to settle the dispute once and for all on the following day.
14. 382. However, still according to the complainant, at 9 a.m. on 27 March the Minister went to the CARENA enterprise, then at 6 p.m. he summoned all the parties involved, including the UGTCI, the FESACI and the Ivorian employers, to ask the workers to return to work prior to the holding of any negotiations, on the pretext that Côte d'Ivoire was striving to obtain investments, that disputes were going on between African countries over enterprises and that negotiations could not be conducted while an enterprise was shut. The director of CARENA stated that the 14 staff delegates, along with the entire staff, had automatically been dismissed for desertion of duties, with the sole exception of the best technicians. The Secretary-General of Dignité expressed his regret concerning the request to return to work before negotiations had been held and the announcement that the workers and their delegates had been dismissed for desertion of duties. He asked that the issue of salaries, bonuses and allowances according to the new wage scale for shipbuilding and repair be examined, taking into consideration the economic and social situation within the country. According to the complainant, the Minister of Employment then threatened Dignité that he would declare the strike to be a wildcat and illegal one if the activists did not return to work the following day. The UGTCI and the FESACI sided with the Minister concerning the unconditional return to work. The Minister demanded a reply as to whether work would resume by 9 p.m. The Secretary-General of Dignité, however, asked the Minister to extend the deadline until the following day so that the workers could be consulted.
15. 383. On 28 March 1997, the Secretary-General of Dignité received a letter from the Minister of Employment which the complainant attached to its complaint. In it the Minister recognizes, firstly, that the CARENA enterprise is classified in the "building and repair of transport material branch", maintaining that this point corresponds to Dignité's principal claim; secondly, that the matter constitutes an industrial dispute that should be examined by the industrial advisory board, at the request of the Secretary-General of Dignité; thirdly, that the board is convened for 1 April 1997 at 4 p.m. on condition that the striking workers return to work on the agreed day. The letter goes on to say: "Dignité requested an extension of the deadline to consult its rank-and-file members and promised to reply during the morning of 28 March. At midday no reply had been received contrary to assurances given." The Minister insisted on an immediate reply. If he did not receive one, he states in the letter, he would be obliged to instruct the employer, on his request, to resume his usual activities "and the implications of the shortcomings demonstrated by Dignité would then have to be examined in order to establish responsibility". On 29 March 1997, the workers of the CARENA enterprise sent a letter to the Minister of Employment; the complainant attached an extract of the letter to its complaint. In this letter the workers indicate that they find the expression "building and repair of transport material" to be very vague and imprecise. They recall that the memorandum of agreement dated 20 December 1996 made mention of the fact that the director of CARENA had confirmed that its principal activity was shipbuilding and repair. On 3 April 1997, once the employer had obtained the authorization of the Minister of Employment, who had declared the strike to be a wildcat and illegal one and had ordered the dismissal of the 300 workers, all the staff delegates without exception received a letter of dismissal.
16. 384. The complainant adds that on 1 May 1997 the Secretary-General of Dignité raised the problem of the CARENA enterprise with the Prime Minister, who in turn asked the Minister of Employment to put the matter back on the negotiating table in order to find a solution. The conciliation meeting was held at the Ministry of Employment on 1 October 1997. According to the complainant, the employer had resumed business using subcontracted workers. The employer indicated that 200 workers were employed on the site, 80 of whom had recently been recruited to enable him to meet his orders. He proposed reinstating 20 of the 300 dismissed workers. The Secretary-General of Dignité demanded that all the workers dismissed during the strike be reinstated and that the issue of the wage scale be re-examined. After the meeting ended in failure, the complainant organized a solidarity march which was suppressed by the police on 4 February 1998. The aim of the march was to bring this industrial dispute, which has still not been resolved, to the attention of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.

B. The Government's reply

1. 385. In its reply the Government retorts that during industrial disputes it has always sought to bring the social partners to the negotiating table in accordance with Conventions Nos. 87 and 98. Therefore, at the very beginning of the CARENA dispute, the Ivorian authorities began negotiations in the hope of finding a solution. Unfortunately, these unceasing calls for conciliation were not well received by the trade union confederation Dignité which claims, nevertheless, to defend the material and moral interests of workers. Dignité also organized a protest march on 4 February 1998 against the enterprise's management and the Ivorian Government. Far from being peaceful, the march was an incitement to social unrest as witnessed by declarations made by the confederation both before and after the march.
2. 386. The Government recalls that in a previous case a so-called "peaceful" strike organized by workers affiliated to the Dignité confederation resulted in an enterprise executive becoming permanently disabled after losing an eye. Likewise, a number of persons were seriously injured at Irho-Lamé following premeditated aggression by workers affiliated to Dignité against colleagues who had turned up for work. In its view, these serious precedents justified the involvement of national police units to prevent matters getting out of hand and disturbing public order.
3. 387. With regard to the alleged arrest of workers following the protest march, the Government indicates that the matter has not been referred to it.
4. 388. With respect to the complainant's memorandum concerning the CARENA strike, the Government remarks that it knows nothing of the actual details of the dispute, which appears to it to consist of a web of lies whose objective is to undermine the reputation of Côte d'Ivoire at the international level. Seeking to re-establish the truth, it states that on 18 and 20 December 1996, meetings chaired by the technical services of the Ministry of Employment resulted in the parties to the dispute signing a memorandum of agreement on the following points: recognition by the general manager of CARENA that the principal activity of the enterprise is shipbuilding and repair, convening of a meeting of the industrial advisory board on 15 January 1997 at the latest, return to work by the striking workers on Monday, 23 December 1996 at 8 a.m. In accordance with the memorandum of agreement, after due consideration the industrial advisory board decided to put the matter before the Permanent Independent Conciliation Committee (CIPC) established by common accord between employers and workers. The conclusions reached by the Committee would be submitted to the industrial advisory board for approval.
5. 389. Contrary to the information provided by the trade union confederation Dignité, the case could not be discussed by a joint technical committee as the shipbuilding and repair sector does not constitute a branch of activity. The joint committee chaired by the labour inspector and made up of the employer and workers' representatives is only competent to classify employees.
6. 390. Nevertheless, with discussions still continuing in the quest for a solution, the officials of Dignité retracted and stopped participating on the grounds that the work of the CIPC was not advancing at the desired pace and that the employers' representatives within that structure were not qualified to discuss the shipbuilding and repair sector. Consequently, and without requesting another meeting of the industrial advisory board, Dignité gave strike notice on 27 January 1997 on behalf of the workers of the CARENA enterprise, who then went on strike on 5 March 1997.
7. 391. Following the strike notice, a meeting held on 27 March 1997 resulted in the following points of agreement: the employer renounced the envisaged dismissals; a meeting of the industrial advisory board was scheduled for 1 April to consider new elements in the case; the striking workers would return to work on 1 April 1997; Dignité was invited to communicate its definitive position to the Minister's office by 28 March at the latest.
8. 392. In a letter dated 28 March 1997, the Minister of Employment confirmed these provisions to the Secretary-General of Dignité, inviting him to lift the call for strike action, which was in violation of the above-mentioned memorandum of agreement, saying that otherwise he would be obliged to allow the employer to resume his usual activities.
9. 393. The conciliatory attitude demonstrated by the Minister of Employment was not well received by Dignité. Its Secretary-General responded, entirely unexpectedly, by sending an offensive letter on 29 March 1997 in which he made the lifting of the call for strike action subject to a number of conditions, including the meeting of the advisory board. In so doing, he blocked the whole bargaining process.
10. 394. During the 1 May 1997 celebrations, the Secretary-General of Dignité indicated to the Prime Minister that he wished to resume negotiations, in accordance with the Prime Minister's instructions and with the objective of again bringing together the two parties to the dispute. The consultations conducted by the Minister's advisers did not however allow the matter to be promptly settled because of difficulty contacting (a) the Secretary-General of Dignité due to travel during the months of June and July 1997 and (b) the general manager of the CARENA enterprise due to his taking leave in July and August 1997. Finally, a meeting chaired by the director of the Minister's office to reconcile the positions of the employer and the workers' representatives of the CARENA enterprise was held on 1 October 1997.
11. 395. The Government confirms the failure of the negotiations. The manager of CARENA considered that the employees who had refused to return to work at the end of the illegal strike had deserted their duties. He agreed, however, to allow the former CARENA workers to apply for the 20 posts that remained to be filled. The Secretary-General of the trade union confederation Dignité thought that negotiations should be resumed, on the one hand to continue to examine the workers' claims and, on the other, to achieve the reinstatement of all the workers who had participated in the strike.
12. 396. The Government notes the unprofessional attitude shown by Dignité officials in this case. While the officials claim that their members saw the Minister of Employment at the CARENA enterprise, the Government maintains that the Minister never went to the enterprise. All negotiations of collective disputes presided over by the Minister are held at the Ministry of Employment, unless the enterprise is situated outside the Abidjan region. The Government adds that the Director of Employment and Labour Regulation, Mr. N'Dri, did not attend the meeting on 26 March 1997, as was incorrectly stated by the complainant, as he was in Geneva at that time to participate in the 268th Session of the Governing Body of the International Labour Office.

C. The Committee's conclusions

1. 397. The Committee notes that this case relates to allegations of the dismissal of 14 staff delegates and the mass dismissal of workers (300 individuals), designated by name, during a strike for occupational claims, in March 1997; allegations of the infringement of the right of trade unions to demonstrate and of the inviolability of trade union premises; and allegations of physical violence, questioning and ill-treatment of trade unionists, in April 1998.
2. 398. The Committee observes that the accounts of this case submitted by the complainant and the Government differ on a number of points.
3. 399. According to the complainant, the workers of the Abidjan Ship Repair and Industrial Work Enterprise (CARENA) took strike action on several occasions to persuade their employer to apply the wage scale of shipbuilding instead of the one applied in the mechanical engineering industry. The complainant acknowledges that a memorandum of agreement was signed on 20 December 1996 in which the employer recognized that the principal activity of the CARENA enterprise was shipbuilding and repair. However, the memorandum of agreement, according to the complainant, went unheeded. The workers then began a peaceful strike which gave rise to the occupation of the premises by the police and a lock-out by the employer. The employer then dismissed 300 strikers on the grounds that they had all resigned and, for three days, had workers driven from the area surrounding the enterprise by police firing tear gas.
4. 400. The conciliation meetings subsequently held did not prove successful. The workers maintained their call for strike action and the employer maintained the mass dismissal of 300 workers and 14 staff delegates with the authorization of the Minister of Employment. Likewise, a further attempt at conciliation on 1 October 1997 ended in failure as the employer had resumed business using subcontracted workers. Dignité asked that the 300 striking workers be reinstated in their posts and that the wages and allowances inherent in the classification of CARENA in the shipbuilding and repair sector be re-examined, while the employer only accepted to rehire 20 workers.
5. 401. The aim of the protest march on 4 February 1998 was to bring the industrial dispute going on at the CARENA enterprise to the attention of the authorities, the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. It was harshly suppressed by the police who once again resorted to the use of tear gas (physical violence, injuries, questioning, ill-treatment, occupation of Dignité's headquarters for ten days).
6. 402. According to the Government, on the other hand, the memorandum from the complainant is misleading. The meetings chaired by the advisers from the Ministry of Employment resulted in the parties signing a memorandum of agreement on 20 December 1996. However, Dignité, on the grounds that the deliberations of the Permanent Independent Conciliation Committee were not progressing and that the employers' representatives within this structure were not qualified to discuss the shipbuilding and repair sector, began a new strike.
7. 403. According to the Government, a conciliation meeting was held on 27 March 1997 at the Ministry of Employment, which resulted in the following areas of agreement: the employer renounced the envisaged dismissals, an industrial advisory board meeting was convened for 1 April, the workers were to return to work on 1 April 1997. However, the Secretary-General of Dignité, in a letter sent to the Minister of Employment, made the lifting of the call for strike action subject to the meeting of the advisory board, thus blocking the bargaining process.
8. 404. The conciliation meeting on 1 October 1997, which was in fact held following an appeal made by the Secretary-General of Dignité on 1 May 1997 to the Prime Minister to resume negotiations, did not spell an end to the issue given that the parties' positions continued to diverge.
9. 405. The Committee recalls first of all the importance that it attaches to respect of the right to strike which is an intrinsic corollary to the right to organize protected by Convention No. 87. In this case, the Committee observes that the Minister's declaration of the strike as illegal was used by the employer to dismiss en masse 300 striking workers and 14 were staff delegates. The Committee regrets that the declaration of the strike as illegal was made by the Government and recalls that the responsibility for declaring a strike illegal should not lie with the Government, but with an independent body which has the confidence of the parties involved. (See Digest of decisions and principles of the Freedom of Association Committee, 4th edition, 1996, para. 522.)
10. 406. The Committee recalls that the use of extremely serious measures, such as dismissal of workers and, a fortiori, staff delegates for having participated in a strike and refusal to re-employ them, implies a serious risk of abuse and constitutes a violation of freedom of association. (See Digest, op. cit., para. 597.) Furthermore, the Committee wishes to reiterate that the hiring of workers to break a strike and requiring workers to go back to work, except for such cases where the strike risks causing a situation in which the life, health or personal safety of populations might be endangered, are contrary to the principles of freedom of association. (See Digest, op. cit., paras. 570 and 572.) The Committee therefore urges the Government to take the necessary action to ensure the reinstatement in their posts of all the workers and workers' delegates to have suffered anti-union discrimination who were dismissed after going on strike at the CARENA enterprise on 6 March 1997.
11. 407. Furthermore, as regards the involvement of the police to drive the strikers away from the area surrounding the enterprise over a period of three days, from 25 to 27 March 1997, and the use of tear gas, the Committee notes that the Government did not refute this allegation. The Committee recalls that in strike movements, the public authorities should resort to the use of force only in situations where law and order is seriously threatened. In the Committee's view, the use of police for strike-breaking purposes constitutes an infringement of trade union rights. (See Digest, op. cit., paras. 579 and 580.) In this case, the Committee considers that trade union rights were clearly infringed during the three days when strikers were driven away from the area surrounding the enterprise by the police, on the employer's request.
12. 408. As regards the police being called in a second time to stop the solidarity march on 4 February 1998, whose aim was to request that negotiations be resumed, and where, according to the complainant, the police once again used tear gas and caused injuries among demonstrators, the Committee cannot be satisfied by the Government's explanations that the police involvement was to avoid disturbances of the peace on the pretext that Dignité was inciting social unrest and had reacted in the same way in other industrial disputes. In fact, in this case the Government gives no concrete examples of any incitement to violence made by Dignité. The Committee considers that this police action infringed the right to demonstrate of this occupational organization seeking to defend its members' interests. It requests the Government to initiate an inquiry into these two police interventions in order to determine those responsible so that they may be brought to justice and to refrain from such actions in the future.
13. 409. With respect to the allegation concerning the attack on and occupation of Dignité's premises for a number of days following the trade union demonstration on 4 February (broken windows, tear gas, occupation of the premises for a number of days), the Committee observes with regret that the Government provides no comments on this allegation. The Committee thus fears that this allegation is not unfounded. It recalls that the right of the inviolability of trade union premises also necessarily implies that the public authorities may not insist on entering such premises without prior authorization or without having obtained a legal warrant to do so. Consequently, the entry by police or military forces into trade union premises constitutes a serious and unjustifiable interference in trade union activities that creates a climate of fear among trade unionists which is prejudicial to the exercise of trade union activities. (See Digest, op. cit., paras. 175, 176 and 179.) The Committee therefore once again requests the Government to undertake an inquiry to bring those responsible to justice.
14. 410. On a general note, concerning the industrial dispute at the CARENA enterprise, the Committee requests the Government to resume negotiations on this matter and to keep it informed of decisions taken by the industrial advisory board made up of the workers and employers concerned in this industrial dispute under the supervision of experts from the Ministry of Employment.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 411. In the light of its foregoing conclusions, the Committee invites the Governing Body to approve the following recommendations:
   • (a) As regards the mass dismissal of 300 workers and 14 staff delegates from the Abidjan Ship Repair and Industrial Work Enterprise (CARENA), following strike movements started in March 1997, the Committee recalls that the right to strike is an intrinsic corollary to the right to organize protected by Convention No. 87 and urges the Government to take the necessary action to ensure the reinstatement in their posts of all the workers and workers' delegates to have suffered anti-union discrimination.
   • (b) As regards the various interventions by the police against the strikers, the Committee requests the Government to undertake an inquiry to bring those responsible to justice and to guarantee that such acts do not occur again.
   • (c) As regards the allegation concerning the attack on and occupation of Dignité's premises for a number of days following the trade union demonstration on 4 February 1998, the Committee recalls that the entry by police or military forces into trade union premises constitutes a serious and unjustifiable interference in trade union activities that creates a climate of fear among trade unionists which is prejudicial to the exercise of trade union activities. It therefore once again requests the Government to undertake an inquiry to bring those responsible to justice.
   • (d) On a general note, as regards the industrial dispute at the CARENA enterprise, the Committee requests the Government to resume negotiations on this matter and to keep it informed of decisions taken by the industrial advisory board made up of the workers and employers involved in this industrial dispute under the supervision of experts from the Ministry of Employment.