The right to strike

On 7 November 2014, the ILO Governing Body will debate how to overcome the challenge to the ILO’s unique supervisory system posed by the Employers Group. In 2012, the ILO Employers’ Group walked out on the Committee on Application of Standards, making the claim that no right to strike exists under ILO Convention 87 and that the ILO Committee of Experts had no mandate to interpret ILO conventions.

Since then, the Employers’ Group’s attacks have widened to cover other conventions. The ITUC and the ILO Workers’ Group see no other available option to affirm the existence of the right to strike and to safeguard the ILO supervisory system than to seek the intervention of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as provided for in the ILO Constitution.

However, we need the majority of the Governing Body to support this process. Over the last few months, ITUC affiliates around the world have aggressively lobbied their governments to support a referral of the dispute to the ICJ and those efforts are paying off. More governments are joining with the workers in calling for an advisory opinion from the Court so that we can in fact return on a more solid legal foundation to the tripartism that was lost in 2012.