Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2000, published 89th ILC session (2001)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Syrian Arab Republic (Ratification: 1960)

The Committee recalls that, by virtue of Article 2 of the Convention, freedom of association is to be guaranteed not only to employers and workers in private industry, but also to public servants, employees in public services and workers in nationalized industries. Persons in all these categories should be permitted to defend their interests by exercising the right to organize.

In this respect, the Committee requests the Government to indicate in its next report whether the right to organize of public servants is regulated by legislative provisions and, if so, to provide copies of them.

Furthermore, although the Convention guarantees the right to organize to workers in the public service, their corollary right to strike to further and defend their economic and social interests may be either limited or prohibited. In the view of the Committee, a too broad definition of the concept of public servant, which varies considerably from one country to another, is likely to result in a very broad restriction or even a prohibition of the right to strike for these workers. As a consequence, the Committee has always considered that the prohibition of the right to strike in the public service should be limited to public servants exercising authority in the name of the State (see the 1994 General Survey on freedom of association and collective bargaining, paragraphs 156-158).

In this regard the Committee requests the Government to provide copies with its next report of the provisions of the national legislation which govern the exercise of the right to strike by public servants.