ICTUR in Action: Ecuador and Mauritius

At the request of local unions and international partners, ICTUR has recently completed legal analysis of the draft constitution of Ecuador and of the draft labour law for Mauritius

Ecuador: ICTUR has just completed an analysis of the labour provisions in the new draft constitution that is currently before Ecuador’s National Constitutional Assembly. ICTUR was asked to produce a legal study by the British NGO Bananalink on behalf of three Ecuadorian trade union centres, CEOSL, CTE and FENACLE. ICTUR’s Latin America Coordinator Miguel Puerto prepared the legal evaluation with input from a number of ICTUR legal correspondents around the world. The analysis compares the labour provisions with the minimum standards required under ILO conventions and draws upon the findings and reports of the ILO’s Freedom of Association Committee and Committee of Experts, as well as referencing the ITUC’s Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights. ICTUR’s analysis concluded that the document has the potential to become one of the most progressive constitutions in Latin America, in terms of labour rights and more generally. Read ICTUR's report (in Spanish) here.

Mauritius: the British TUC approached ICTUR on behalf of trade unionists from Mauritius and requested an assessment of the proposed new labour relations code for Mauritius, The Employment Relations Bill 2007. For the previous 30 years local unions had complained of a repressive labour relations system under the regime imposed by the Industrial Relations Act (IRA).

ICTUR’s analysis, prepared by staff lawyers and approved by a network of senior ICTUR legal experts, found that the Bill contained a number of encouraging and constructive measures that should, if properly implemented and upheld, appropriately protect certain aspects of these rights. Indeed, ICTUR further emphasised that the Bill is in some ways a labour law model deserving of attention and study, particularly in terms of its introduction into a common law legal framework of the concept of suspension of the employment contract during strike action.

But a caveat of fundamental importance was attached to this assessment: in many ways the Bill does not fully or properly respect these fundamental rights. ICTUR found that the organisation of lawful strike action might be practically impossible through a combination of lengthy, mandatory ‘conciliation’ procedures (that might lead to delays of more than seven months); the prospect of ‘minimum service’ impositions across broad swathes of industry; limitation on the permissible subject matter of strikes; and prevention of strikes for three years following a collective agreement. Added to this, ICTUR found unacceptably severe sanctions permitted for those who participate in ‘unlawful’ strike action.

Yet ICTUR’s conclusions were that no fundamental re-writing of the Bill would be required. Several of its provisions are not only welcome, they are innovative. ICTUR expressed the hope that trade unions would lobby for revisions to certain key sections of the Bill, and urged the Government to takes steps to bring the 2007 Bill into compliance with international obligations. Read ICTUR's report here: