CMNT_TITLE

Repetition

Articles 1(1) and 3(2)(3), of the Convention. Differentiated minimum wage on the basis of age. The Committee notes the explanations provided by the Government concerning the wage rates for young workers under the age of 18. These workers are generally apprentices and receive, by virtue of Decree No. 94 1600 of 18 July 1994, an allowance based on the percentage of the SMIG, which ranges between 30 and 80 per cent of the SMIG depending on the duration of their apprenticeship. The Government further states that young workers working at enterprises covered by collective agreements receive wages equal to or higher than the SMIG, and even in those enterprises to which no collective agreements apply, and therefore young workers would in principle be entitled to 85 per cent of the SMIG, wages equivalent to the SMIG are being paid as a matter of practice. The Committee wishes to recall that, with the exception of apprenticeship arrangements, a system of lower pay rates for young workers that is based on the assumption that these workers may under no circumstances perform work which is quantitatively and qualitatively equivalent to that of adult workers might be discriminatory in certain cases. It therefore hopes that the Government will continue to review, in the light of the overriding principle of equal pay for work of equal value, the advisability of maintaining a policy of differentiated minimum wages on the basis of age.