Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1991, published 78th ILC session (1991)

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 elect trade union officers in full freedom

The Committee recalled 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 also pointed out that section 21 of Presidential Decree No. 07204, of 3 June 1965, amended 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 requested 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, it requested it to take the necessary steps to guarantee that trade union organisations can be dissolved only by the courts.

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

The Committee also noted 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 of 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 requested the Government to state whether this provision was still in force and, if not, to take the necessary steps to bring it into force once again.

The Committee notes that, according to the Government's report, a draft text of a new General Labour Act has been prepared with the technical assistance of the ILO and that this text takes account of the Committee's comments and will be submitted to Congress before 15 July 1991.

The Committee requests the Government to supply specific information in its next report on the matters raised above, and on the progress made as regards the draft text of the General Labour Act, which was prepared with the technical assistance of the ILO in order to bring the legislation into conformity with the Convention.