Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1989, published 76th ILC session (1989)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Bolivia (Plurinational State of) (Ratification: 1965)

1. Restrictions on exercising the right to strike and the right to elect trade union officers

The Committee recalls the need to reduce the majority that is currently required to call a strike (section 114 of the General Labour Act of 1939 and section 159 of the Decree issued thereunder, No. 244 of 23 August 1943) and to fix it at a simple majority of 50 per cent of the workers present in an enterprise during the vote on calling a strike. It would also be desirable to confine the prohibition of strikes in the public services (section 118 of the Act), including banks and public markets (section 1(c) and (d) of Supreme Decree No. 1958 of 16 March 1950), the recourse to compulsory arbitration as a means of putting an end to a strike (section 113(c) of the Act) and the prohibition of general and solidarity strikes under penalty of imprisonment (sections 1 and 2 of the Legislative Decree of June 1951), except in the three cases in which a strike may be restricted or prohibited, that is (1) in the essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is, services where a strike would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population; (2) for public servants acting in their capacity as agents of the public authority; and (3) in an acute national crisis.

The Committee also recalls the need to relax the provisions that prohibit a person who is not a regular worker from being a trade union officer and those that terminate the trade union functions of officers who have ceased their activities (sections 6 and 7 of the Legislative Decree of June 1951) with a view to allowing persons who have previously worked in the occupation to be candidates.

2. Dissolution of trade unions by administrative authority

The Committee points out that section 21 of Presidential Decree No. 07204 of 3 June 1965 modified section 129 of the Decree of 1943 issued under the General Labour Act of 1939, concerning dissolution by administrative authority, so as to provide that trade unions may be dissolved only by decision of the labour courts, thus bringing the legislation into conformity with Article 4 of the Convention. Since several successive repeals have subsequently taken place, the Committee requests the Government to state whether section 21 of Presidential Decree No. 07204 of 3 June 1965, which amended section 129 of the Decree of 1943 to replace the administrative dissolution of trade unions by dissolution by the courts, is currently in force and, if not, requests it to take the necessary steps to give effect once more to this provision so that it is in conformity with the Convention on this point.

3. Prohibition of establishing more than one trade union in an enterprise

The Committee also notes that section 1 of Presidential Decree No. 07634 of 18 May 1966, amended section 4 of Presidential Decree No. 07204 of 3 June 1965 under which, in each enterprise or firm, only one trade union shall be organised with the name "workers' trade union", comprising all the manual and non-manual workers in cases where there are less than the 20 employees required under section 3 of the Decree in order to be able to organise two trade unions in the same enterprise. The Committee requests the Government to state whether this provision is still in force and, if not, requests it to take the necessary steps to bring it into force again.