Demande directe (CEACR) - adoptée 2009, publiée 99ème session CIT (2010)

Article 1 of the Convention. Forty-hour week. Further to its previous comment concerning section 99 of the Labour Code on averaging of hours of work, the Committee notes the Government’s explanations that such arrangement may be introduced only when the activity of a specific enterprise cannot be adjusted to the normal duration of the working day or the working week due to objective reasons. However, the Committee wishes to reiterate its view that allowing the averaging of working hours over a general reference period of one year appears to be too long to guarantee full application of the principle of a 40‑hour week as embodied in the Convention. In fact, the longer the reference period is, the more pronounced the possible deviations from the normal duration of the working week can be, which would of course contradict the principle of progressive reduction of hours of work. The Committee accordingly requests the Government to provide full particulars, including all available statistics and any relevant documents, on working time flexibility schemes currently in place allowing weekly working hours to be averaged over a one-year period, in particular the number of workers and types of enterprises concerned.

In addition, the Committee notes that, under section 104(4) of the Labour Code, overtime work is authorized in some unspecified cases – other than emergencies and unforeseen circumstances – with the written consent of the worker and the worker’s representative organization. It also notes that, under section 104(5) of the Labour Code, the maximum annual limit of overtime may be increased from 120 to 240 hours in exceptional cases with the written consent of the workers’ representatives. The Committee wishes to refer, in this respect, to Paragraph 14 of the Reduction of Hours of Work Recommendation, 1962 (No. 116), which envisages exceptions of three kinds (permanent, temporary, periodical) to the normal hours of work and provides that the competent authorities in each country should determine the circumstances and limits of such exceptions. The Committee further refers to paragraph 79 of its General Survey of 1984 on working time in which it noted that undue facilitation of overtime, for example, by not limiting the circumstances in which it may be permitted or by allowing relatively high maximums, could in the most egregious cases tend to defeat the Recommendation’s objective of a social standard of a 40-hour week and make irrelevant the provisions as to normal working hours. The Committee therefore requests the Government to supply more detailed information on the conditions under which overtime is authorized, in the light also of the relevant provisions of Recommendation No. 116.

 Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would provide together with its next report up to date information on the practical application of the Convention, including, for instance, extracts from labour inspection reports showing the number and nature of contraventions reported with regard to hours worked in excess of the 40-hour week; statistics concerning the categories and number of workers to whom the principle of a 40-hour week has been applied and the number of hours worked in excess of the 40-hour week; the categories and number of workers to whom the principle of the 40-hour week has not as yet been applied and the normal hours of work applicable to these workers; official studies or reports on working time issues and especially the question of the reduction of hours of work in relation to factors such as the effect of new technologies and employment policy objectives; trends on working time arrangements as reflected in recent collective agreements, etc.