Compilation of decisions of the Committee on Freedom of Association

Collective bargaining15

Recognition of the most representative organizations

1. The Collective Bargaining Recommendation, 1981 (No. 163), enumerates various means of promoting collective bargaining, including the recognition of representative employers and workers organizations (Paragraph 3(a)).

1. Systems of collective bargaining with exclusive rights for the most representative trade union and those where it is possible for a number of collective agreements to be concluded by a number of trade unions within a company are both compatible with the principles of freedom of association.

1. Legislation that sets a threshold for the validation of collective agreements goes against neither Article 4 of Convention No. 98 nor the objective of promoting the broadest possible development and utilization of voluntary collective bargaining procedures, especially if the threshold has been set in consultation with the social partners and if it is not too high.

1. In a case where the right to represent all the employees in the sector in question appeared to have been granted to organizations which were representative only to a limited extent at the national level, the Committee considered that, if national legislation establishes machinery for the representation of the occupational interests of a whole category of workers, this representation should normally lie with the organizations which have the largest membership in the category concerned, and the public authorities should refrain from any intervention that might undermine this principle.

1. Employers, including governmental authorities in the capacity of employers, should recognize for collective bargaining purposes the organizations representative of the workers employed by them.

1. Recognition by an employer of the main unions represented in the undertaking, or the most representative of these unions, is the very basis for any procedure for collective bargaining on conditions of employment in the undertaking.

1. Employers should recognize for the purposes of collective bargaining organizations that are representative of workers in a particular industry.

1. Where difficulties with regard to the interpretation of rules concerning the election of trade union officers create situations where the employers refuse to negotiate with the union concerned and, more in general, to recognize such a union, problems of compatibility with Convention No. 87 arose.

1. The requirement that the employer have at least 21 employees in order for a union to have recourse to the recognition dispute procedure runs contrary to the principle of free and voluntary collective bargaining.