Scope of the strike (Right to strike)

490. Provisions which prohibit strikes if they are concerned with the issue of whether a collective employment contract will bind more than one employer are contrary to the principles of freedom of association on the right to strike; workers and their organizations should be able to call for industrial action in support of multi-employer contracts.

(See 292nd Report, Case No. 1698, para. 737.)

491. Workers and their organizations should be able to call for industrial action (strikes) in support of multi-employer contracts (collective agreements).

(See 295th Report, Case No. 1698, para. 259.)

492. The Committee has stated on many occasions that strikes at the national level are legitimate in so far as they have economic and social objectives and not purely political ones; the prohibition of strikes could only be acceptable in the case of public servants exercising authority in the name of the State (Endnote 1) or of workers in essential services in the strict sense of the term, i.e. services whose interruption could endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.

(See 281st Report, Case No. 1569, para. 143(4).)

493. A declaration of the illegality of a national strike protesting against the social and labour consequences of the government's economic policy and the banning of the strike constitute a serious violation of freedom of association.

(See 279th Report, Case No. 1562, para. 518(a).)

494. As regards the general strike, the Committee has considered that strike action is one of the means of action which should be available to workers' organizations. A 24-hour general strike seeking an increase in the minimum wage, respect of collective agreements in force and a change in economic policy (to decrease prices and unemployment) is legitimate and within the normal field of activity of trade union organizations.

(See 248th Report, Case No. 1381, paras. 412 and 413.)

495. A general protest strike demanding that an end be put to the hundreds of murders of trade union leaders and unionists during the past few years is a legitimate trade union activity and its prohibition therefore constitutes a serious violation of freedom of association.

(See 265th Report, Cases Nos. 1434 and 1477, para. 495.)

Endnote 1

It should be emphasized that, since November 1994, the Committee has defined the public servants in respect of whom the right to strike could be prohibited or restricted as "public servants exercising authority in the name of the State". This differs from the manner in which the Committee had defined them previously and the wording used in its Digest of 1985, in which it referred to "public servants acting as agents of the public authority". In the paragraphs below, which are citations, the older definitions have been adapted to the wording adopted in November 1994.