Employment law
The prerogatives of the union committee: three written rights, and what is not written
At the Ansongo Mines Services site, the union committee sends management three requests: a room for its monthly meeting, access to the notice board, and a meeting with the director. Management grants the meeting, refuses the room for lack of space, and requires communications to be approved before any posting. Three requests, two refusals. And two interferences with prerogatives written into the Code.
Ansongo Mines Services and the people named here are fictional. They serve only as an example throughout this article.
1. The three prerogatives written into the Code
The Code lists the union committee’s prerogatives in three lines, and that brevity is misleading: each one carries a precise obligation for the company (Labour Code, article L.262).
| The prerogative | What the employer owes | The frequent mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom to post and distribute communications of a professional nature | Allow posting and distribution, with no prior control of content | Requiring approval before posting |
| A meeting of union delegates once a month, outside working hours, in a room made available by the head of the company | Provide a room, every month | Answering “no space available” and sending the meeting off site |
| Being received by the head of the company on request | Receive them, rather than systematically delegating to a subordinate | Treating the request as an optional approach |
Three rights, then, depending on no agreement, no tolerance and no custom. They apply as soon as the union committee is formed and its members have been notified to the employer.
2. Freedom to post is not a right of censorship
The word the Code uses is “freedom”. It does not read as mere tolerance: the employer does not approve, does not authorise and does not check the content of a communication before it goes out. Requiring prior approval does not limit the freedom to post, it abolishes it.
A limit exists, but it lies in the subject matter, not in the procedure. Communications must be of a professional nature, and the union’s exclusive object is the study and defence of the rights and of the material, economic, social and moral interests, collective and individual, of its members (Labour Code, article L.232). A leaflet unrelated to the occupation falls outside; a leaflet on working conditions, pay or safety falls squarely inside.
The comparison that clarifies
Staff delegates do not have the same latitude: they may post, to the exclusion of any other document, the information it is their role to bring to the staff’s attention within their mission. The Code also requires posting to be effectively provided at the entrances to workplaces and on locations compulsorily set aside for union communications, chosen in a visible spot and preferably where staff pass through.
In other words: union posting locations are not a favour, they must exist, and they must be visible.
Freedom to post is a freedom. Prior approval abolishes it.
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3. The room and the monthly meeting
The text is precise on three points, and each answers a common objection.
- Frequency. Once a month: a guaranteed minimum, not a quota to be negotiated.
- Timing. Outside working hours. The monthly meeting therefore gives rise, on that basis, to no payment for the time spent.
- Place. A room made available by the head of the company. Providing the room is a company obligation, not a facility granted.
“No space available” is not an acceptable answer: it is an admission that the obligation was never organised. On an industrial site, a meeting room, a canteen or an office freed up one evening a month is enough.
The comparison with staff delegates confirms the logic. Towards them, the head of establishment must make available the room and the furniture needed to allow them to carry out their mission and in particular to meet. In most cases the company therefore already provides a space that can serve both institutions.
4. Being received by the head of the company
The third prerogative is the briefest and the most neglected: being received on request by the head of the company. The Code sets no frequency, no time limit and no form. It sets a principle: the request creates a right to be received.
The table below places that prerogative alongside the other meeting rights, each governed by distinct rules.
| Institution | Right to meet or be received |
|---|---|
| Union committee | Monthly meeting of union delegates outside working hours, in a room provided; received by the head of the company on request |
| Staff delegates | Received collectively by the head of establishment or his representative at least once a month, and additionally in an emergency at their request |
| The most representative union federations | Premises made available by order of the Minister of Labour, inviolable except under judicial warrant |
Two differences are worth remembering. Staff delegates are received at least once a month, on the employer’s initiative; the union committee is received on its request. And the arrangements for receiving staff delegates are set by order of the Minister of Labour, which is not the case for the union committee.
5. Time and its payment
The Code proceeds by cross-reference: the union delegate benefits, for the exercise of his functions, from the same time and the same protection granted by article L.277 (Labour Code, article L.263). That “same time” is the staff delegates’ time: a period that, save in exceptional circumstances, may not exceed fifteen hours a month, counted as working time and paid as such.
The reservation for exceptional circumstances is written into the text. Fifteen hours is therefore an ordinary limit, not an untouchable ceiling: collective bargaining, a dispute, or an economic redundancy procedure may take it further.
Example. An Ansongo Mines Services delegate earns XOF 150,000 a month. On the basis of the statutory forty-hour week, about 173 hours a month:
- Hourly rate: 150,000 ÷ 173 ≈ XOF 866.
- Fifteen hours of delegation: 15 × 866 ≈ XOF 12,990 a month, paid as working time.
- Over a year: about XOF 155,880 for one delegate. That is the scheme’s real cost, and it can be budgeted.
This time is distinct from the monthly meeting, which takes place outside working hours. The delegate’s full status is set out in The union delegate.
6. What comes from the ILO, and what comes from the Code
Here lies the most widespread confusion. One frequently reads that, “in accordance with ILO Convention No. 135 and its Recommendation No. 143”, workers’ representatives enjoy time off to attend meetings, training courses, seminars, conferences and union congresses, and above all that “access to all workplaces must be granted to them by management”.
Two distinctions are needed. An ILO convention produces effect in domestic law only once ratified and implemented by national legislation. A recommendation is never binding: it is guidance addressed to States to shape their legislation, not a rule enforceable against a company.
| What the Malian Labour Code guarantees | What belongs to the recommendation, not to the Code |
|---|---|
| Posting and distributing professional communications | A general right of access to all workplaces |
| A monthly meeting outside working hours, in a room provided | A permanent room assigned to the union committee in the company |
| Being received by the head of the company on request | An imposed frequency of meetings with management |
| Fifteen hours a month, paid, save in exceptional circumstances | A time credit extended to training courses and seminars |
This does not mean such facilities are forbidden: it means they do not apply of their own force. The route for granting them is the establishment agreement, whose very purpose is to adapt collective agreements to the company’s particular circumstances and which may provide terms more favourable to workers (Labour Code, article L.88).
An ILO recommendation guides the legislator. It does not bind a company. An establishment agreement does.
7. What refusing a prerogative costs
A refusal is not merely a point of industrial friction. It is criminally punishable, and the text expressly targets interference with the regular exercise of the functions.
| The breach | The penalty incurred |
|---|---|
| Interfering or attempting to interfere with the free designation of staff delegates or with the regular exercise of their functions | A fine of XOF 100,000 to 500,000 and imprisonment of one month to one year, or one of those two penalties; on a repeat offence, imprisonment is always imposed |
| Taking union membership or activity into account in an individual decision | A fine of XOF 50,000 to 250,000 and imprisonment of 1 to 4 months; on repetition, XOF 500,000 to 1,000,000 and 8 months |
Offences may be established by the labour inspector or, failing that, by officers of the judicial police. And any measure taken in breach of the ban on taking union activity into account is also wrongful under civil law, and gives rise to damages.
Example. At Ansongo Mines Services, the refusal of a room runs for six months and prior approval of communications is maintained.
- Two written prerogatives are obstructed, lastingly and documented by the committee’s written requests.
- The company exposes itself to a fine of XOF 100,000 to 500,000 and imprisonment of one month to one year, or one of those two penalties.
- The cost avoided over those six months was that of a room freed up one evening a month.
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A closer look: the resources that are not in the union chapter
Three provisions useful to union operation sit elsewhere in the Code, and people rarely look for them in the right place.
Dues. They may be collected by the employer, at the request of the union or unions, in the form of a voluntary assignment of wages duly made by the worker, for the benefit of the organisation of his choice (Labour Code, article L.123). Without a written assignment, the deduction is irregular. The full regime for deductions is set out in Wages: what may be deducted.
Federation premises. Premises are made available to the most representative workers’ federations, at their request, by order of the Minister of Labour. Once they serve as headquarters they are inviolable and may be searched only under a warrant from the judicial authority, limited to the purposes of that warrant.
Union training leave. Unpaid leave for union education or training may be granted to workers on request. Those periods count as periods of actual work for calculating paid leave, entitlement to family benefits and length of service. They are therefore unpaid, but they cost the worker no seniority.
Authorised absences for statutory congresses follow a different regime: they are paid and are not deducted from annual leave. The detail appears in Freedom of association.
Key takeaways in 6 points
- Remember the three written prerogatives: free posting, a monthly meeting in a room provided, and being received on request.
- Remove any prior-approval procedure: freedom to post excludes control of content.
- Actually provide the room for the monthly meeting, which takes place outside working hours.
- Pay the fifteen monthly hours as working time, bearing in mind that the text reserves exceptional circumstances.
- Distinguish what the Code guarantees from what the ILO recommends, and use an establishment agreement to go further.
- Measure the risk: obstructing the regular exercise of the functions is punishable by a fine and a prison sentence.