Relationship between individual employment contracts and collective agreements (Collective bargaining)

910. The relationship between individual employment contracts and collective agreements, and in particular the possibility that the former may override certain clauses in the latter under specific conditions, is dealt with differently in the various countries and under the various types of collective bargaining systems concerned. The basic task of the Committee is to decide whether the facts of the case are compatible with the Conventions and principles concerning freedom of association. In a case in which the relationship between individual contracts and the collective agreement seems to have been agreed between the employer and the trade union organizations, the Committee considered that the case did not call for further examination.

(See 268th Report, Case No. 1472, para. 44.)

911. In one case, the Committee found it difficult to reconcile the equal status given in the law to individual and collective contracts with the ILO principles on collective bargaining, according to which the full development and utilization of machinery for voluntary negotiation between employers or employers' organizations and workers' organizations should be encouraged and promoted, with a view to the regulation of terms and conditions of employment by means of collective agreements. In effect, it seemed that the Act allowed collective bargaining by means of collective agreements, along with other alternatives, rather than promoting and encouraging it.

(See 295th Report, Case No. 1698, para. 255.)

912. With regard to temporary job offers in the public sector to combat unemployment, in which the wages were not determined under the terms of the collective agreements governing remuneration of regular employees, the Committee expressed the hope that the Government would ensure that, in practice, the job offer remained of a limited duration and did not become an opportunity to fill permanent posts with unemployed persons, restricted in their right to bargain collectively as regards their remuneration.

(See 294th Report, Case No. 1641, paras. 74 and 75.)