Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2001, published 90th ILC session (2002)

The Committee notes the information contained in the Government’s reports, particularly Act No. 140/AN/97/3ème L of 23 September 1997 amending the Labour Code of 1952. In its reports the Government indicates that it opted for deregulation allowing wages to be determined by the laws of supply and demand and negotiations between the partners and that, since the above Act was promulgated, the guaranteed interoccupational minimum wage (SMIG) system is no longer in force. The Committee notes in this connection that, under section 31 of Act No. 140/AN/97/3ème L of 23 September 1997, the remuneration set in labour contracts is the result of enterprise agreements, collective agreements or an agreement between the parties to the contract and that no minimum wage has been set by law. It also notes that the Act nullifies the former provisions introducing a minimum wage.

The Committee is bound to recall that, pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 1, of the Convention, the Government undertakes to create or maintain machinery whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in certain of the trades or parts of trades in which no arrangements exist for the effective regulation of wages by collective agreement or otherwise and wages are exceptionally low. The Committee further recalls that, as it stated in its General Survey on 1992 on minimum wages, collective agreements constitute minimum wage-fixing machinery within the meaning of the Convention only if they ensure that the minimum wages fixed are binding, which means that: (i) the wages must have force of law; (ii) the wages may not be lowered; and (iii) failure to apply them must be appropriately penalized. The Committee observes that, the SMIG system having been abandoned, the Government leaves minimum wage fixing entirely to the social partners. It therefore requests the Government to indicate the laws or regulations which ensure that the wage rates freely negotiated in collective agreements have force of law and may not be lowered and that non-compliance is subject to sanctions, in accordance with the requirements of the Convention.

The Committee further notes that a new Labour Code is in the process of being prepared and that the provisions of the Act of 1997 should be reproduced in full in the Code. It hopes in this connection that the Government will bear in mind that when a member State ratifies a Convention, it undertakes to apply and enforce its provisions. The Committee therefore trusts that the Government will do its utmost to ensure that the new Code continues to give full effect to the provisions of the Convention. It asks the Government to inform it of progress in its next report and to provide a copy of the new Code as soon as it has been adopted.