The Right to Strike and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 

Abstract

For nearly 40 years after 1952, when the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) was established, there was no challenge by the Employers’ Group to the body of jurisprudence on the right to strike as developed by the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association (a tripartite body) and the ILO Committee of Experts.  Indeed, the CFA had routinely issued conclusions and recommendations, by tripartite consensus, affirming the right to strike and regulating its exercise. The ILO Committee of Experts’ observations on the right to strike were also regularly approved by the tripar- tite constituents at the International Labour Conference. With the end of the Cold War, the alliance between the Employers’ Group and Workers’ Group against Eastern Bloc repression of independent trade union rights was no longer relevant; the Employers’ Group’s acceptance of a right to strike recognised and protected by the ILO therefore started to wane. 

Keywords: Right to Strike, Labor Law, International Labor Organization