The General Workers’ Union claimed a victory over the government yesterday when the Committee of Freedom Organisations within the International Labour Organisation ruled that the government should amend section 6 of the National Holidays and Other Public Holidays Act.

GWU Secretary General Tony Zarb explained that the union had filed a court case against the government in September 2005.

The union claimed that the government violated Conventions Nos 87 and 98 by amending the law on public holidays, thereby nullifying existing clauses on this matter in previously concluded collective agreements, bypassing the collective bargaining process and restricting the parties’ right to adopt such clauses in future agreements.

Mr Zarb said that the committee had recommended that the board of governors of the ILO should consider the following resolution, which has been approved:

“The Committee requests the government to amend section 6 of the National Holidays and Other Public Holidays Act so as to ensure that this provision: i) does not render automatically null and void provisions in existing collective agreements which grant workers the right to recover public holidays falling on a Saturday or Sunday and ii) does not preclude voluntary negotiations in the future over the issue of granting workers the right to recover national or public holidays which fall on a Saturday or Sunday on the basis of a collective agreement.”

Mr Zarb said that this meant that thousands of government workers would be positively affected by this development as well as other employees who have collective agreements which included this clause.

He said that up to this point, the government had not yet reacted to this decision adding that if the government wants to be “cruel” it could consider reducing the number of public holidays.