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

Article 1 of the Convention. Forty-hour week. Averaging of hours of work. In its previous direct request, the Committee noted that, while section 89 of the Labour Code establishes a normal working week of 40 hours, section 96 of this Code allows the hours of work to be calculated as an average over a period of up to one year, in which case the daily hours of work may not exceed 12 hours. It notes that, in its report, the Government refers to an act of 16 May 2008 amending the Labour Code, which does not, however, seem to amend the provisions of section 96. The Committee draws the Government’s attention to the negative effects that an excessive working day can have on the health of workers and on the balance between their private life and work. Furthermore, it considers that calculating the hours of work as an average over a reference period of up to one year allows too many exceptions to the principle of the 40-hour week and makes it difficult to achieve the objective of the gradual reduction of working hours. Furthermore, the implementation of such working time arrangements should be possible only in well defined cases. In this regard, the Committee once again refers to Paragraph 12 of the Reduction of Hours of Work Recommendation, 1962 (No. 116), which mentions the possibility of calculating normal hours of work as an average over a period longer than one week “when special conditions in certain branches of activity or technical needs justify it”. The Committee requests the Government to provide detailed information on the working time arrangements established under section 96 of the Labour Code, including details concerning the number of workers and the type of enterprises concerned. The Government is also requested to indicate the measures taken or envisaged to reduce the daily hours of work and the reference period applied in the context of such arrangements. Finally, the Committee requests the Government to provide a copy of Act No. 608-IIIQD of 16 May 2008 amending the Labour Code.

Overtime. The Committee notes that sections 99(2) and 101 of the Labour Code list the circumstances in which the performance of overtime is permitted. It notes that, under section 100 of this Code, where the working conditions are difficult or dangerous, workers may not work more than two hours overtime per day, or more than four hours overtime over two days. The Committee notes that the Labour Code does not limit the number of hours of overtime for all workers and that, even for the workers referred to in section 100, it does not establish a monthly or annual limit on the number of hours of overtime permitted. It draws the Government’s attention to the negative impact that an excessive working day or week can have on the health of workers and on the balance between their private life and work, and, in particular, to the possible consequences of a high number of hours of overtime. In this regard, it refers to paragraph 79 of its General Survey of 1984 on working time, in which it emphasized 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”. In the light of the preceding observations, the Committee requests the Government to provide further information on the implementation of the provisions of the Labour Code relating to the regulation of overtime and, in particular, on the measures taken or envisaged to establish reasonable daily, monthly and/or annual limits on the number of hours of overtime permitted for all workers.

Furthermore, the Committee notes that section 30.1 of Act No. 926-IQ of 21 July 2000 on the public service establishes a working week of 40 hours, but provides that the working week may be extended by five hours per month without additional remuneration in exceptional cases and that additional overtime beyond those five hours shall be remunerated. In this regard, it refers to Paragraph 19 of Recommendation No. 116, according to which overtime work should be remunerated at a higher rate than normal hours of work and this rate should in no case be less than 1.25 times the regular rate. The Committee requests the Government to indicate whether it is considering taking measures to ensure the remuneration of all overtime at a rate that is at least 25 per cent higher than the regular rate of the workers to whom the Act on the public service is applicable.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee requests the Government to provide up to date information in its next report on the application of the Convention in practice, including, for example, extracts from reports of the labour inspection services including information on the number and nature of violations reported with regard to hours worked beyond 40 hours per week; statistics concerning the categories and number of workers to whom the principle of the 40-hour week has been applied and the number of hours of overtime worked by these workers beyond the 40-hour week; the categories and number of workers to whom the principle of the 40-hour week has not yet been applied and the normal hours of work of these workers, as well as the number of hours of overtime worked; copies of studies or official reports on issues relating to working time, especially concerning the reduction of hours of work linked to new technologies or as an employment policy tool, in particular in the context of the current global economic crisis; and finally, information on the working time arrangements provided for under recent collective agreements.