Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2009, published 99th ILC session (2010)

Article 2 of the Convention. Insertion of labour clauses in public contracts. Further to its previous comment, the Committee notes that the Convention continues to be implemented through the provisions of the Fair Labour Standards Ordinance, 1988, as amended by the Fair Labour Standards (Amendment) Ordinance, 1990. However, since the adoption of the above Ordinance, the Government has never communicated general information on the manner in which the Convention is applied in practice. It therefore requests once again the Government to supply up to date information in this respect, including samples of public contracts or other tender documents referring to labour clauses, statistics on the number of public contracts awarded and the number of workers concerned, labour inspection results showing the number and type of  infringements observed as well as the sanctions imposed, etc.

In addition, the Committee recalls that it has been commenting on the exclusion of casual workers – defined as workers whose employment is irregular, of short duration and sporadic – from the scope of application of the Fair Labour Standards Ordinance, in response to which the Government had indicated that the necessary amendments were being considered. In this connection, the Committee understands that a draft Labour Code had been prepared in 2003, section 4(2) and (3) of which no longer excluded casual workers from the application of the Code, while draft section 173 essentially reproduced the existing provisions of the Fair Labour Standards Ordinance with regard to labour clauses in public contracts, with the exception that it no longer specified a minimum value threshold for public contracts (currently set at 5,000 Eastern Caribbean dollars). The Committee would appreciate if the Government would indicate any progress made in the process of adoption of the draft Labour Code, in particular as regards the points mentioned above.