Le cadre juridique de la négociation collective dans le secteur public au Québec: une perspective internationale

• Published in: Relations industrielles (Québec, Québec) Québec), 1987, Vol.42 (4), p.831-851
• Main Author: Barré, Alain
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• ISSN: 0034-379X; 1703-8138
• DOI: 10.7202/050366ar

L'auteur commente la décision du Comite de la liberté syndicale touchant divers aspects du cadre juridique des relations du travail dans le secteur public au Québec: le niveau de la négociation collective, les restrictions apportées à l'exercice du droit de grève et la détermination des services essentiels. The Freedom of Association Committee of the International Labour Organization (ILO) rendered a decision, in February 1987, concerning the legal framework of collective bargaining in Quebec's public sector set forth by An Act Respect ing the Process of Negociation of the Collective Agreements in the Public and Parapublic Sectors, S.Q. 1985, c. 12 (referred to as the Act). This case will be known as the Case no. 1356. The ILO Constitution establishes freedom of association as one of the fundamental principles on which the Organisation is based. Consequently, membership in ILO entails that a State Member such as Canada has the obligation to implement that constitutional principle. In 1951, the Organisation set up a special machinery to insure the protection of this principle. The machinery involves the examination of complaints by the Committee of Freedom of Association. This Committee is a 9-member Committee of ILO Governing Body and, like the Governing Body itself, its composition is tripartite: government, workers' and employers' appointees. Complaints are generally submetted by workers organisations of a national or an international level. These complaints may concern States which have not ratified ILO conventions on freedom of association. Since its establishment, the Committee has built up a corpus of decisions and principles covering most aspects of freedom of association and the protection of trade unions rights. The Committee has dealt with more than 1 400 cases. The decision of the Committee deals basically with three issues: level of collective bargaining, determination of salaries for the second and third years of a collective agreement and limitations of the right to strike in the social affairs sector. In the framework of the Act, the collective negociation must take place at the provincial level except those matters defined as being subject to a negociation at the local or regional level. Those matters are defined by the Act in respect to some classes of workers or by the parties in the course of negociation at the national level. Strikes are prohibited in respect to a matter defined as being subject to a negociation at the local or regional