Gabon - 2011

Population: 1,500,000
Capital: Libreville
A coalition of education unions denounced the authoritarian excesses of their supervisory board. Expatriate contractual teachers were singled out after a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
at the beginning of the school year in October. Two union leaders at the Libreville Town Hall were held in prison for over three months.

reported violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Background

Social reform and tackling corruption, which the government claims are its priorities, are all the more necessary in a country where one person in three lives in poverty, despite healthy oil revenues.

Trade union rights in law

Freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
and the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
are guaranteed in the Constitution. However, the provisions in the Labour Code are somewhat lacking, although public servants have the right to organise. Anti-union discrimination anti-union discrimination Any practice that disadvantages a worker or a group of workers on grounds of their past, current or prospective trade union membership, their legitimate trade union activities, or their use of trade union services. Can constitute dismissal, transfer, demotion, harassment and the like.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework

is not expressly prohibited in law, but the courts can award compensation to employees who have been victims of such discrimination.

The authorities are not permitted to interfere in lawful strikes, which must be preceded by arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation
. Although workers in the public sector have the right to call a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
, it can be restricted if deemed to pose a threat to public safety.

Violations

Two trade union leaders held in prison for over three months : Alexandre Nzengui, President of the Libreville Town Hall Workers’ Union (SYAML) and Olui Nzué Memine, General Secretary of Action for Municipal Renewal (ARM), were held in preventive detention from 22 July to 27 October for “obstructing the freedom to work” and “destruction of the real estate of a third party”. The arrests took place against a background of tense industrial relations industrial relations The individual and collective relations and dealings between workers and employers at the workplace, as well as the institutional interaction between unions, employers and also the government.

See social dialogue
. The municipal employees had carried out several strikes since January to protest against delays in paying their salaries and the non-payment of social charges, deducted at source by the Town Hall. At the beginning of April, strikers had placed, in the main hall of the Town Hall, the body of a colleague who had died, they claimed, because he had not received the care he needed due to the delayed payments.
Authoritarian excesses in the education sector: On 10 November the Minister of Education, Séraphin Moundounga, announced that he wanted teachers who had taken part in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
at the beginning of the school year in October to appear before a disciplinary council. The decision concerned 18 expatriate members of the Executive Board of the Union of Contractual Teachers of Gabon (SECEG). The SECEG has hundreds of expatriate teachers among its members who feel they have been discriminated against because they cannot benefit from a new incentive bonus for teachers. The other union that called a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
, the National Convention of Education Sector Unions (CONASYDED) had repeatedly complained of the authoritarian excesses of the supervisory authorities, in particular its refusal to continue dialogue with “illegal” organisations. CONASYDED maintains that all its member unions are legally recognised.
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