The Right to Strike in International Law (original) (raw)
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In June 2012, the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Employers' group dramatically challenged the right to strike, interrupting usual proceedings within the organisation's annual International Labour Conference. Among their many arguments was the fact that the ILO's Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations did not have a mandate to interpret conventions and could not therefore interpret the existence of a right to strike in a convention that does not explicitly mention this right. This has widely been seen as an unprecedented crisis, but the fact is that the Employers have regularly voiced their opposition to the right to strike since 1989, and it is moreover intertwined with deeprooted questions regarding interpretation within the ILO. In other words, the questions raised by the Employers long predate the current (so-called) crisis. At the same time, however, until 1989, the Employers not only supported the interpretations of the Committee of Experts, but also supported the interpretation of a right to strike. In order to get to grips with this apparent paradox, this article explores the historical and political circumstances surrounding the Employers' relationship with the right to strike within the ILO, highlighting how current events reflect a new position of power that is historically contingent, as well as a desire to reduce the ILO's influence.
The dynamics have changed: the right to strike at the ILO
In 2012 the Employers Group crudely halted the work of a key committee of the International Labour Conference with an argument attempting to strip the right to strike from the concept of freedom of association. This article explores events at the 2015 meeting in which the fundamental right of workers to take strike action was confirmed, and the Employers agreed to allow the ILO to resume its full supervisory role with respect to the ratification and implementation of international labour standards.
Canadian Labour Employment Law Journal, 2010
bodies responsible for assessing state compliance with "freedom of association" have established an extensive jurisprudence on the right to strike. This jurisprudence is based on their interpretation of the ILO Constitution and various key ILO conventions concerning the right to organize and collective bargaining, in both the private and the public sector. Since the end of the Cold War, the employer lobby within the ILO has increasingly tried to undermine this aspect of ILO jurisprudence, so as to deny that there is any necessary link between freedom of association and the right to take industrial action. This pressure has come at a time when ILO norms are beginning to receive greater attention and respect, and are being applied in the human rights jurisprudence of other legal systems, including those of Canada and Europe. In 2007, the European Court of Justice for the first time explicitly recognized a right to strike, referring to ILO Convention 87 as a source of this entitlement, but limited it by imposing a proportionality requirement on its exercise. In 2009, the European Court of Human Rights indicated for the first time that the right to strike was implicit in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, again in reliance on ILO standards. This paper compares and contrasts those cases, investigating the extent to which European recognition of a right to strike can serve to reinforce or undermine ILO standards. The paper also considers the more general implications of these developments for Canadian human rights jurisprudence.
The right to strike A trade union view
1991
This short book, written for and published by the Institute of Employment Rights, discusses the nature of an impact of the anti-strike laws as they existed in 1991. Unfortunately, although the book is over 20 years' old, much of this law still exists, and this is despite 13 years of a Labour government. Moreover, further controls were introduced by the Conservative’s Trade Union Act 2016, particularly through the imposition of special voting majorities In secret ballots . The main purpose of the book is to argue that trade union members have nothing to gain from repeal of the anti-union law being in the form of the re-widening of the statutory immunites. Rather, the system of immunites should be totally replaced by a system of positive rights to strike and engage in effective picketing.
Conflict over Conflict: The Right to Strike in International Law
Global Labour Journal
The existence of a right to strike under international law has been challenged by the International Organization of Employers since the late 1980s. The employer group claims that no such right exists under international law and has been moving to undermine recognition of the right at the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This article examines the right to strike in international human rights law. It considers specifically the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and finds that the right to strike exists in both of these treaties. Further, the article demonstrates that while the ILO employers group may challenge the existence of the right to strike, its government members have overwhelmingly ratified international human rights treaties contradicting the employer group's position that there is no such right. KEYWORDS right to strike; ILO; freedom of association; human rights Today, 64 years since the United Nations declared December 10 a Human Rights Day, the world is witnessing an unprecedented attack on one of the most fundamental human rights of all, the right to strike (International Trade Union Confederation Statement on Human Rights Day, 2014a).