Convention
concerning the Promotion of Collective Bargaining
(Note: Date of coming into
force: 11:08:1983.)
The General Conference of the
International Labour Organisation,
Having been convened at Geneva by the
Governing Body of the International Labour Office,
and having met in its Sixty-seventh Session on 3 June 1981, and
Reaffirming the provision of the
Declaration of Philadelphia recognising "the
solemn obligation of the International Labour Organisation to further among the nations of the world programmes which will achieve ... the effective recognition
of the right of collective bargaining", and noting that this principle is
"fully applicable to all people everywhere", and
Having regard to the key importance of
existing international standards contained in the Freedom of Association and
Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948,
the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining
Convention, 1949, the Collective Agreements Recommendation, 1951, the Voluntary
Conciliation and Arbitration Recommendation, 1951, the Labour
Relations (Public Service) Convention and Recommendation, 1978, and the Labour Administration Convention and Recommendation, 1978,
and
Considering that it is desirable to
make greater efforts to achieve the objectives of these standards and,
particularly, the general principles set out in Article 4 of the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, and in
Paragraph 1 of the Collective Agreements Recommendation, 1951, and
Considering accordingly that these
standards should be complemented by appropriate measures based on them and
aimed at promoting free and voluntary collective bargaining, and
Having decided upon the adoption of
certain proposals with regard to the promotion of collective bargaining, which
is the fourth item on the agenda of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals
shall take the form of an international Convention,
adopts the nineteenth day of
June of the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-one, the following
Convention, which may be cited as the Collective Bargaining Convention, 1981:
Article 1
1. This Convention applies to all
branches of economic activity.
2. The extent to which the guarantees
provided for in this Convention apply to the armed forces and the police may be
determined by national laws or regulations or national practice.
3. As regards the public service,
special modalities of application of this Convention may be fixed by national
laws or regulations or national practice.
Article 2
For the purpose of this Convention the
term collective bargaining extends to all negotiations which take place
between an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers' organisations, on the one hand, and one or more workers' organisations, on the other, for--
(a) determining
working conditions and terms of employment; and/or
(b) regulating
relations between employers and workers; and/or
(c) regulating
relations between employers or their organisations
and a workers' organisation or workers' organisations.
Article 3
1. Where national law or practice recognises the existence of workers' representatives as
defined in Article 3, subparagraph (b), of the Workers' Representatives
Convention, 1971, national law or practice may determine the extent to which
the term collective bargaining shall also extend, for the purpose of
this Convention, to negotiations with these representatives.
2. Where, in pursuance of paragraph 1
of this Article, the term collective bargaining also includes
negotiations with the workers' representatives referred to in that paragraph,
appropriate measures shall be taken, wherever necessary, to ensure that the
existence of these representatives is not used to undermine the position of the
workers' organisations concerned.
Part II. Methods of Application
Article 4
The provisions of this Convention
shall, in so far as they are not otherwise made effective by means of
collective agreements, arbitration awards or in such other manner as may be
consistent with national practice, be given effect by national laws or
regulations.
Part III. Promotion of Collective
Bargaining
Article 5
1. Measures adapted to national
conditions shall be taken to promote collective bargaining.
2. The aims of the measures referred to
in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be the following:
(a) collective
bargaining should be made possible for all employers and all groups of workers
in the branches of activity covered by this Convention;
(b) collective
bargaining should be progressively extended to all matters covered by
subparagraphs (a), (b) and (c) of Article 2 of this Convention;
(c) the
establishment of rules of procedure agreed between employers' and workers' organisations should be encouraged;
(d) collective
bargaining should not be hampered by the absence of rules governing the
procedure to be used or by the inadequacy or inappropriateness of such rules;
(e) bodies and
procedures for the settlement of labour disputes
should be so conceived as to contribute to the promotion of collective
bargaining.
Article 6
The provisions of this Convention do
not preclude the operation of industrial relations systems in which collective
bargaining takes place within the framework of conciliation and/or arbitration
machinery or institutions, in which machinery or institutions the parties to
the collective bargaining process voluntarily participate.
Article 7
Measures taken by public authorities to
encourage and promote the development of collective bargaining shall be the
subject of prior consultation and, whenever possible, agreement between public
authorities and employers' and workers' organisations.
Article 8
The measures taken with a view to
promoting collective bargaining shall not be so conceived or applied as to
hamper the freedom of collective bargaining.
Part IV. Final Provisions
Article 9
This Convention does not revise any
existing Convention or Recommendation.
Article 10
The formal ratifications of this
Convention shall be communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration.
Article 11
1. This Convention shall be binding
only upon those Members of the International Labour Organisation whose ratifications have been registered with
the Director-General.
2. It shall come into force twelve
months after the date on which the ratifications of two Members have been
registered with the Director-General.
3. Thereafter, this Convention shall
come into force for any Member twelve months after the date on which its
ratifications has been registered.
Article 12
1. A Member which has ratified this
Convention may denounce it after the expiration of ten years from the date on
which the Convention first comes into force, by an Act communicated to the
Director-General of the International Labour Office
for registration. Such denunciation should not take effect until one year after
the date on which it is registered.
2. Each Member which has ratified this
Convention and which does not, within the year following the expiration of the
period of ten years mentioned in the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of
denunciation provided for in this Article, will be bound for another period of
ten years and, thereafter, may denounce this Convention at the expiration of
each period of ten years under the terms provided for in this Article.
Article 13
1. The Director-General of the
International Labour Office shall notify all Members
of the International Labour Organisation
of the registration of all ratifications and denunciations communicated to him
by the Members of the Organisation.
2. When notifying the Members of the Organisation of the registration of the second ratification
communicated to him, the Director-General shall draw the attention of the
Members of the Organisation to the date upon which
the Convention will come into force.
Article 14
The Director-General of the
International Labour Office shall communicate to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations for registration in accordance with Article 102 of the
Charter of the United Nations full particulars of all ratifications and acts of
denunciation registered by him in accordance with the provisions of the preceding
Articles.
Article 15
At such times as may consider necessary
the Governing Body of the International Labour Office
shall present to the General Conference a report on the working of this
Convention and shall examine the desirability of placing on the agenda of the
Conference the question of its revision in whole or in part.
Article 16
1. Should the Conference adopt a new
Convention revising this Convention in whole or in part, then, unless the new
Convention otherwise provides:
a) the
ratification by a Member of the new revising Convention shall ipso jure involve the immediate denunciation of this Convention,
notwithstanding the provisions of Article 12 above, if and when the new
revising Convention shall have come into force;
b) as from the
date when the new revising Convention comes into force this Convention shall
cease to be open to ratification by the Members.
2. This Convention shall in any case
remain in force in its actual form and content for those Members which have
ratified it but have not ratified the revising Convention.
Article 17
The English and French versions of the
text of this Convention are equally authoritative.