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The Committee notes that, following the amendment of the Labour Code of 1997, no minimum level of remuneration is established in law and all the previous provisions respecting the minimum wage have been repealed. According to the Government’s report, these changes reflect its will to let the law of supply and demand prevail, together with wage negotiations in this field.

The Committee is bound to recall once more that the Convention requires, irrespective of the machinery for fixing minimum wages, compliance with certain principles, such as the need for the minimum rates determined to be binding, the participation of the social partners in all stages of wage negotiations and the imposition of appropriate penalties for violations of the rates that are in force. The Committee again requests the Government to indicate the standards which guarantee these principles in the system for the fixing of minimum wage rates through collective bargaining which has been introduced following the abandonment of the system of the guaranteed inter-occupational minimum wage (SMIG).

Furthermore, the Committee would be grateful to the Government if it would provide with its next report, as the Committee requested it to do in its previous comment, practical information concerning the branches of economic activity and the various categories of workers covered by collective agreements, copies of recent collective agreements containing clauses fixing minimum wages, and the approximate number of workers whose remuneration is not regulated by collective agreement.

The Committee hopes that the Government will make every effort to give full effect to the provisions of the Convention. It would also like to be kept informed of the work on the formulation of the new Labour Code and it requests the Government to provide a copy of the new text once it has been finalized.

[The Government is asked to reply full particulars to the Conference at its 95th Session.]