Right to strike: Labour hails ICJ ruling as a triumph for freedom, justice

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

Trade unions across Africa have hailed the ruling of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, affirming the right to strike under the International Labour Organisation’s Convention No. 87, describing the ruling as a historic victory for workers’ freedom, democracy and social justice.

The African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC-Africa, in a statement issued from Lomé, Togo, said the judgment of the world court has reinforced the legitimacy of strike action as a fundamental democratic right that cannot be denied or weakened.

The statement, signed by ITUC-Africa General Secretary, Akhator Joel Odigie, said the labour movement across Africa welcomed the court’s opinion because it affirmed what workers had defended for generations — that the right to strike is inseparable from freedom of association and trade unionism.

According to the organisation, the labour movement was built through “struggle, sweat, blood and deaths of countless martyrs,” stressing that virtually all major gains workers enjoy today were achieved because workers organised collectively and retained the power to withdraw their labour in the face of exploitation and injustice.

ITUC-Africa said: “Every major social and economic gain workers enjoy today — fair wages, regulated working hours, occupational safety, maternity protection, pensions, social protection, collective bargaining, and democratic freedoms — was won because workers organised collectively and retained the power to withdraw their labour.”
The organisation argued that freedom of association would lose practical meaning if workers were denied the ability to take collective industrial action when dialogue and negotiations fail.

“A union that cannot organise industrial action when dialogue fails is reduced to symbolism without power. The right to strike is not secondary, optional, or negotiable. It is inherent in the very existence of trade unionism,” the statement added.

ITUC-Africa maintained that workers do not embark on strikes to create instability or sabotage society, but often as a last resort against exploitation, wage suppression, unsafe working conditions, union repression, inequality and unemployment.

The organisation warned that worsening economic hardship, rising living costs, shrinking civic space and precarious employment conditions across Africa have made the defence of strike rights even more critical.

“At a time when workers across Africa continue to bear the burden of deepening inequality and economic systems that prioritise profit over human dignity, the defence of the right to strike becomes even more imperative,” it said.

The union body also linked strike rights to democratic governance, insisting that no society can claim to uphold democracy while denying workers the right to organise, protest and collectively withdraw their labour.

According to ITUC-Africa, strong democracies are strengthened when workers are free to organise, bargain collectively and hold governments and employers accountable through lawful industrial action.

The organisation vowed that the African trade union movement would continue to defend the right to strike “firmly, consistently, and without apology.”

The ICJ, sitting in The Hague, Netherlands, had in a landmark advisory opinion ruled by 10 votes to four that the right to strike is protected under the ILO Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).
The ruling followed decades of disagreement within the ILO between workers’ organisations and employers over whether Convention No. 87 implicitly guarantees workers the right to strike.

In its decision, the court held that the freedom of workers’ organisations to organise their activities and defend workers’ interests includes strike action, even though the convention does not expressly mention the word “strike.”

Labour activists and union leaders worldwide are already describing the opinion as one of the most significant international labour rights decisions in recent history.

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