I.L.O. attacks worker curbs in Nicaragua

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 21

I.L.O. attacks worker curbs in Nicaragua

NZPA-Reuter Geneva The International Labour Organistion has said that restrictions in Nicaragua on the right to strike are a serious departure from 1.L.0. norms on workers’ freedoms. A report adopted at the 150-nation United Nation agency’s annual conference urged Nicaragua’s leftist government to bring its labour code and practice in line an 1.L.0. convention on freedom of association. i’ 1

The report cited findings by an 1.L.0. “watch-dog” panel of legal experts that farm workers had been banned from striking if there was a danger of food perishing. In addition, the government was empowered to end a strike that had lasted 30 days by submitting it to compulsory arbitration, the experts said. A Nicaraguan government delegate, Adrian Meza Soza, said that certain passages in the report did not

correspond to the real situation in his country. But in a spirit of “flexibility and maturity” he would not oppose its adoption. The report was submitted to a plenary session of the conference by a committee overseeing implementation of 1.L.0. labour standards. The three-week assembly was attended by more than 2000 representatives of governments, employers’ associations, and trade unions.