Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1995, published 83rd ILC session (1996)

The Committee notes the adoption on 25 August 1995 of a new Labour Code (Act No. 94-029), under section 208 of which the provisions respecting occupational health and safety of the 1975 Labour Code remain in force. The Committee also notes the information provided by the Government in its report to the effect that the national Assembly has adopted a Code respecting health, safety and the working environment and that the texts to be issued under this code, which are currently being prepared, will take into account the provisions of the Convention. The Committee recalls that its previous comments concerned the following matters:

In the comments that it has been making for a number of years, the Committee notes that measures have not yet been taken to limit the weight of loads that may be transported by adult male workers.

Even before the adoption of the Labour Code in 1975, the Government had announced in its reports that texts to apply the Code would include a text to give effect to this Convention. In a report received in 1983, the Government confirmed this undertaking, although it pointed out that factories manufacturing jute and plastic sacks for rice, flour, etc., now respected the standard of 50 kg, and that the old sacks of 70 or 75 kg were disappearing since they were no longer being manufactured in Madagascar. In its report for the period ending 30 June 1986, the Government indicated that the above information concerning the current standardization of sacks manufactured locally remained valid and that this practice would be laid down in regulations.

The Committee noted that, according to the Government's report received in 1989, and the two letters signed by the Minister of the Civil Service, Labour and Labour Legislation in 1988, which were attached to the report, in practice factories, traders, transporters and farmers use sacks of 90, 75 or 70 kg, which are generally manufactured locally, even though certain enterprises which are the principal manufacturers of these articles currently respect the standard of 50 kg. Consequently, the use of sacks that are in conformity with the requirements of international standards would, in the opinion of the Government, give rise to problems at the level of manufacture and consumption and would create difficulties as regards production costs and prices for manufacturers, users, producers and rural workers. In a letter addressed in November 1988 to the social partners, the Minister invited them to recommend production units "in order to avoid the harmful effects of the immediate application of the Convention in national law and so as not to be in opposition with the country's undertakings at the international level", to manufacture, by stages, sacks of 55 kg or 65 kg and to launch them progressively onto the market as they are produced.

The Committee recalls that by virtue of Article 3 of the Convention, no worker shall be required or permitted to engage in the manual transport of a load which, by reason of its weight, is likely to jeopardize his health or safety. This rule does not provide for any exceptions on the grounds of production costs or prices or for any other reason. The Committee noted that it was more than 20 years since Madagascar ratified the Convention. For several years, the Government has been undertaking to lay down in regulations the current practice adopted by the principal manufacturers of sacks which will respect the standard of 50 kg. In these circumstances, it considers that the Government's letter recommending the production of sacks of up to 65 kg constitutes a serious retrogression.

The Committee trusts that the Government will indicate in the near future the measures which have been taken to ensure that the Convention is applied to adult workers and that it will provide copies of the provisions that have been adopted, including a copy of the Code respecting health, safety and the working environment, when it has been enacted.