The Essential Industries Decree of 2011, which currently covers the financial sector, telecommunications, civil aviation and public services, severely restricts trade union rights. On 13 September, ILO Director General Juan Somavia denounced the decree, stating: «By going ahead with this Decree the government has demonstrated the same lack of concern for the views of the international community as it has for the rights and aspirations of its own people. That means reversing this and other restrictive labour decrees, a return to dialogue with trade unions and employers, an end to assaults on and harassment of trade unionists, and the immediate restoration of basic civil liberties.»
Memos surfaced in 2011 suggesting that the decree was written for the regime by a U.S.-based law firm, whose fees were paid for in part by Air Pacific, the Fijian national airline; 46% of its shares are also owned by the Australian air carrier Qantas.
Two articles of the Essential National Industries Decree in particular have devastated trade unions in the sectors concerned. First, Article 2 of the decree provides that the bargaining unit must consist of 75 or more members. In many cases, there are fewer than 75 workers in a job classification, eliminating the right of such workers to form a unit under the decree. Second, Article 7 requires that bargaining unit representatives be employees of the employer with whom they are bargaining. In most cases in Fiji, there is little leadership, institutional structure or expertise at the branch level, with union leadership and technical capacity centralised at the national union level. These people are employees of the union and not of any of the employers where their members are employed. Thus, the relationship between the union leadership and the rank and file is effectively severed by the decree. Those union representatives who attempt to support the bargaining efforts of inexperienced new bargaining units can face stiff penalties and prison terms under the law.
Employers in sectors not even covered by the decree have invoked it in order to justify elimination of dues deductions, unilateral changes to collective agreements and refusal to bargain.
Workers are resigning from unions en masse, as they either see no use in belonging to an institution that cannot effectively represent them, are threatened by management to leave the union, or resign out of a general fear that trade unionism is a dangerous undertaking in Fiji today. The decree also bans the automatic deduction of trade union dues from workers’ salaries (unless the employer agrees to do so). Some leaders predicted that their unions would not be able to hold on financially for too much longer unless the situation changed quickly.