Trade Union situation in the federation of malaya

A series of factual surveys relating to freedom of association was begun by the International Labour Office in 1959. The first of these were carried out during that year in the United States and the Soviet Union 2 and they were followed in 1960 by surveys in the United Kingdom and Sweden. The survey in Sweden, to which the present report is devoted, was undertaken, like the previous surveys, by a Mission from the I.L.O., which spent six weeks in Sweden between September and November 1960, visiting Stockholm, northern Sweden-including places on the Gulf of Bothnia and in the Arctic Circle-various centres in central Sweden and Gothenburg in the south.

Freedom of association-understood, according to the I.L.O. Con ventions in this field, as the right of workers and employers to form and join organisations of their own choosing and the right of these organisa tions to function freely-has been a concern of the I.L.O. for many years. "Recognition of the principle of freedom of association " is, in fact, one of the objectives cited in the Preamble of the International Labour Organisation's Constitution.

Between the First and Second World Wars, freedom of association was the subject of numerous discussions and studies in the I.L.O. As early as 1921 the International Labour Conference adopted the Right of Association (Agriculture) Convention, and in 1927 an abortive attempt was made to secure the adoption of a Convention concerning freedom of association for workers and employers.