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PREFACE Respect for freedom of association around the world is a fundamental and unavoidable requirement for the International Labour Organization because of its most essential structural characteristic, namely tripartism, and the important responsibilities based on the Constitution and ILO instruments that employers' and workers' organizations are called upon to exercise within the Organization itself, as well as within the different member States. The new ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work adopted by the International Labour Conference in 1998, "...declares that all Members, even if they have not ratified the Conventions in question, have an obligation, arising from the very fact of membership in the Organization, to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental rights... ", which include freedom of association. Without freedom of association or, in other words, without employers' and workers' organizations that are autonomous, independent, representative, and endowed with the necessary rights and guarantees for the furtherance and defence of their members’ rights and the advancement of the common welfare, the principle of tripartism would be impaired, if not completely stripped of all meaning, and chances for greater social justice would be seriously prejudiced. As freedom of association is one of the principles safeguarding peace and social justice, it is entirely understandable, on the one hand, that the ILO has adopted a series of Conventions, Recommendations and resolutions which form the most important international source on this subject, and, on the other hand, that in addition to the general supervisory machinery, in particular the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, a special procedure has been created for the effective protection of trade union rights; this special procedure was entrusted to the Fact Finding and Conciliation Commission on Freedom of Association and the Committee on Freedom of Association. These bodies have established a significant "jurisprudence" in the largest sense of the word in respect of the various aspects of trade union rights. In this publication, which has already appeared as an article in the International Labour Review, Vol. 137 (1998) No. 4, the principles of the Committee on Freedom of Association and of the Committee of Experts concerning the right to strike have been set forth. This right has been affirmed in the 1957 "Resolution concerning the Abolition of Anti-Trade Union Legislation in the States Members of the International Labour Organisation" and the 1970 "Resolution concerning Trade Union Rights and Their Relation to Civil Liberties", as well as in numerous resolutions of the ILO's regional conferences and industrial committees, and by other international bodies. The Bureau for Workers' Activities has considered it appropriate, in view of
the importance of this question, to sponsor this publication jointly with the
Freedom of Association Branch, thus reinforcing the internal collaboration on
the promotion of certain aspects of trade union rights within the framework of
international labour standards. Manuel Simón Velasco |