Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2014, published 104th ILC session (2015)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Myanmar (Ratification: 1955)

With reference to its observation, the Committee recalls the points raised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in relation to a number of provisions of the Labour Organization Act. In the absence of a reply to these points, the Committee once again requests the Government to provide the following information.

Article 2 of the Convention. Right of workers to establish organizations. The Committee once again requests the Government to provide its comments on the queries raised in the ITUC’s previous observations in relation to the meaning of certain terms in the legislation such as trade or activity, especially as regards the possibilities for workers’ organizations, federations or confederations at regional/township or state level to represent workers in different trades or activities.

Article 3. Right of workers’ organizations to elect their officers freely. The Committee notes the observations of the ITUC in relation to certain restrictions for eligibility to trade union office set out in the Rules to the Labour Organization Law (LOL), including the obligation to have been working in the same trade or activity for at least six months and the obligation for foreign workers to have met a residency requirement of five years. The Committee recalls in this regard that rules concerning eligibility based on a requirement to belong to an occupation should be more flexible either by admitting as candidates persons who have previously been employed in the occupation concerned or by exempting from the occupational requirement a reasonable proportion of the officers of an organization. As regards foreign workers, the residency requirement for eligibility should be set at a reasonable period (see General Survey on the fundamental Conventions, 2012, paragraph 102). The Committee requests the Government to review Rule 5 in consultation with the social partners and to indicate any steps taken for its modification in light of the indications above.

Furthermore, recalling its previous comments in relation to section 26 which sets a maximum for union dues, the Committee requests the Government to indicate the measures taken to amend this provision so that workers may determine freely the amount of trade union dues when drawing up their organization’s constitution and by-laws.

Finally, the Committee notes that the ITUC considers that Rule 7, which sets the term of union office to two years, is ambiguous as to the possibility of executive committee members to run for consecutive terms and requests the Government to clarify whether this is the case.

Right of workers’ organizations to freely organize their activities. The Committee once again requests the Government to provide specific information in reply to its previous request that it clarify that section 54 of the LOL only penalizes criminal action aimed at inducing workers to join unions and is not broadly applied to affect the normal exercise of workers’ organizations during a trade union campaign.

In its previous comments, the Committee noted the concerns raised by the ITUC in relation to the requirement that a majority of workers vote for strike action to be undertaken, and once again requests the Government to confirm that this concerns the majority of those voting, in order to ensure that this does not create an excessive obstacle to the undertaking of industrial action. It further requests the Government to confirm more generally that workers’ organizations may carry out actions in protest of the economic and social policy of the Government, and that sympathy action is protected in the event that the initial action is legitimate. Finally, recalling its previous comments concerning the requirement to obtain permission from the relevant labour federation under section 40(b) in order to go on strike, the Committee requests the Government to indicate the steps taken to amend this provision so that workers’ organizations may carry out their activities freely, subject only to the provisions of their own by-laws.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2016.]