Essential services

Essential services may refer to a class of occupations that have been legislated by a government to have special restrictions in regard to labour actions, such as not being allowed to legally strike.

The International Labour Office, a United Nations agency, makes distinctions between an essential service and a minimum service.^[1]

582. What is meant by essential services in the strict sense of the term depends to a large extent on the particular circumstances prevailing in a country. Moreover, this concept is not absolute, in the sense that a non-essential service may become essential if a strike lasts beyond a certain time or extends beyond a certain scope, thus endangering the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.

585. The following may be considered to be essential services:

• the hospital sector
• electricity services
• water supply services
• telephone services
• police and the armed forces
• firefighting services
• public or private prison services
• the provision of food to pupils of school age and the cleaning of schools
• air traffic control

587. The following do not constitute essential services in the strict sense of the term:

• radio and television
• the petroleum sector
• ports
• banking
• computer services for the collection of excises, duties and taxes
• department stores and pleasure parks
• the metal and mining sectors
• transport generally
• airline pilots
• production, transport and distribution of fuel
• railway services
• metropolitan transport
• postal services
• refuse collection services
• refrigeration enterprises
• hotel services
• automobile manufacturing
• agricultural activities, the supply and distribution of foodstuffs
• the minting of money
• Paramedics and ambulances
• the government printing service and the state alcohol, salt, and tobacco monopolies
• the education sector
• mineral water bottling company

While maintaining a right to strike, the ILO recognizes situations and conditions under which a minimum operational service could be required.

606. The establishment of minimum services in the case of strike action should only be possible in: (1) services the interruption of which would endanger the life,

personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population (essential services in the strict sense of the term); (2) services which are not essential in the strict

sense of the term but where the extent and duration of a strike might be such as to result in an acute national crisis endangering normal living conditions

of the population; and (3) in public services of fundamental importance.

Examples where the ILO considered conditions met for a minimum operational service include a ferry service, ports, underground railway, transportation of passengers and commercial goods, postal services, refuse collection service, the mint, banking services, petroleum sector services, education services, and animal health services.

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